Category: Scotland (Central & Southern)

Scot­land (cen­tral & south­ern)

Stop New Nuclear newsletter no 1, July 2011

Wel­come to Stop New Nuclear’s first newslet­ter. You receive this newslet­ter because you have signed one of the pledges, or you signed up to the newslet­ter. Thank you for this.

We plan to send a newslet­ter to all pledgers and newslet­ter sub­scribers about once a month, and pos­si­bly more fre­quent­ly in the weeks before the block­ade. Feel free to share and dis­trib­ute this newslet­ter.

Wel­come to Stop New Nuclear’s first newslet­ter. You receive this newslet­ter because you have signed one of the pledges, or you signed up to the newslet­ter. Thank you for this.

We plan to send a newslet­ter to all pledgers and newslet­ter sub­scribers about once a month, and pos­si­bly more fre­quent­ly in the weeks before the block­ade. Feel free to share and dis­trib­ute this newslet­ter.

Stop New Nuclear, an alliance of eight anti-nuclear groups com­mit­ted to pre­vent­ing the fur­ther expan­sion of the nuclear pow­er indus­try in the UK was formed in May 2011. The plan for our first action, the blockad­ing of Hink­ley Point nuclear pow­er sta­tion on 3 Octo­ber is pro­gress­ing well, and we already have a site for a camp (not far from Hink­ley Point), and peo­ple work­ing on trans­port and local accom­mo­da­tion for peo­ple who are unable or unwill­ing to camp. There is still a lot to do, but there is also a com­mit­ted team in place around Hink­ley Point work­ing on it.

Since the pub­li­ca­tion of our call-out in late May, we have received about 100 pledges in total, of which more than 30 are blockad­ing pledges. This is a good start, but we need many more. We need to grow. Our vision is to block­ade Hink­ley Point nuclear pow­er sta­tions with hun­dreds of peo­ple, and we think we can achieve this, if we all work togeth­er. We still have three months.

Please con­tact as many of your friends and rel­a­tives as pos­si­ble and invite them to take part.

News about Hink­ley Point
EDF (Elec­tric­i­ty de France), the own­ers of Hink­ley Point, did put in an appli­ca­tion for pre­lim­i­nary works for its new nuclear pow­er sta­tion in late Novem­ber 2010,involving pre-con­struc­tion activ­i­ty across an area of more than 420 acres stretch­ing from the Sev­ern Estu­ary to the vil­lage of Shur­ton, fill­ing in a beau­ti­ful val­ley and even start­ing exca­va­tion of the pow­er sta­tion foun­da­tions down to a depth of up to 11 metres. It is still pos­si­ble to object to this plan­ning appli­ca­tion. The dead­line for objec­tions has been extend­ed to 28 July 2011. For more infor­ma­tion, go to Stop Hink­ley’s web­site at http://stophinkley.org/Temporary/31Jan2011.htm.

After the gov­ern­ment pub­lished the set of Nation­al Pol­i­cy State­ments on Ener­gy, includ­ing the one on nuclear pow­er gen­er­a­tion (see http://www.decc.gov.uk/en/content/cms/meeting_energy/consents_planning/nps_en_infra/nps_en_infra.aspx), it is now up to par­lia­ment to approve them. It did not come as a sur­prise that the gov­ern­ment approved eight exist­ing nuclear sites for nuclear new build: Bradwell,Essex; Hartle­pool; Heysham, Lan­cashire; Hink­ley Point, Som­er­set; Old­bury, South Glouces­ter­shire; Sel­l­afield, Cum­bria; Sizewell, Suf­folk; and Wyl­fa in Angle­sey.

EDF announced that it aims to put in an appli­ca­tion for the nuclear pow­er sta­tion at Hink­ley Point to the Infra­struc­ture Plan­ning Com­mis­sion in Octo­ber. This shows how impor­tant it is that our block­ade on 3 Octo­ber is big enough to pro­vide a strong sig­nal to gov­ern­ment and EDF that we will not rest until they give up their plans for nuclear new build in this coun­try (and else­where).

Mobil­i­sa­tion
We need your help with the mobil­i­sa­tion for the block­ade. We have already dis­trib­uted near­ly 5,000 copies of the call-out (see http://stopnewnuclear.org.uk/node/10). We have just ordered a sec­ond print-run of 10,000 copies, and we need your help to get them out. Please let us know if you can help dis­trib­ute some, or go to a fes­ti­val this sum­mer where this might be appro­pri­ate, and we will send you as many as you need. If you can con­tribute to the expens­es for postage, that would be great, but more impor­tant is your help in get­ting the mes­sage out.

You can also help us by talk­ing to your local Friends of the Earth, Green­peace, Tran­si­tion Town, Peo­ple & Plan­et or any oth­er group that you think might be open to sup­port the block­ade. Asks them to sign the organ­i­sa­tion­al pledge (see http://stopnewnuclear.org.uk/pledges), or maybe even to organ­ise a group or minibus to go to par­tic­i­pate in the block­ade.

Train­ing
We have teamed up with Seeds for Change and Turn­ing the Tide to pro­vide train­ing for the block­ade. We are in the process of organ­is­ing train­ing days/afternoons/evenings in Bris­tol, York­shire, Wales, Lon­don, and Som­er­set, but this list is open-end­ed. You can help us by organ­is­ing a group and a venue for a train­ing in your area. If you have any ques­tions regard­ing train­ing, please get in touch.

Train­ing dates will be announced on the web­site. So please check back reg­u­lar­ly for updates.

What you can do
The cam­paign and the block­ade become pow­er­ful through your par­tic­i­pa­tion. You can help us by organ­is­ing an affin­i­ty group to take part in the block­ade (or to give sup­port), by mobil­is­ing in your com­mu­ni­ty, by organ­is­ing a train­ing, but also by reach­ing out to your local media about the dan­gers of nuclear pow­er and our cam­paign to stop new nuclear pow­er sta­tions in Britain.

On the week­end before and the day of the block­ade, we will need a lot of prac­ti­cal sup­port. Some of you have already kind­ly indi­cat­ed when you signed the pledge that you can help in var­i­ous ways. Thank you. When you arrive at the week­end camp or at the block­ade your sup­port will be invalu­able. If any­one else wants to help by wav­ing a plac­ard, help­ing with legal sup­port, help­ing out at the tea stall or by pro­vid­ing prac­ti­cal help with camp logis­tics, then just let us know.

Stop New Nuclear in the news
On 15 June, we sent out our first press release (see http://stopnewnuclear.org.uk/node/24). Since then, we have received more news cov­er­age than expect­ed, thanks part­ly to the gov­ern­men­t’s pub­li­ca­tion of the Nation­al Pol­i­cy State­ments on Ener­gy, and eight sites for nuclear new build. Stop New Nuclear was men­tioned on the BBC News web­site (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-13887579), and in local media around Hink­ley Point
(see http://www.burnham-on-sea.com/news/2011/hinkley-selected-22–06-11.php, http://www.thisisthewestcountry.co.uk/news/somerset_news/9105147.Protesters_plan_Hinkley_Point_blockade/, http://www.thisissomerset.co.uk/Nuclear-plants-ahead-day-West-changed-forever/story-12826052-detail/story.html).
We also did a few inter­views for local radio. This is an encour­ag­ing start, more than three months before the action. You can check news cov­er­age about Stop New Nuclear at http://stopnewnuclear.org.uk/inthepress. Let us know if we missed any­thing.

Dona­tions!
We need them. We expect the cam­paign to cost about £10,000, of which we have been able to raise £2,000 until now. This means we need your help to raise the funds need­ed for this cam­paign — to cov­er for the fli­er, the camp logis­tics, trans­port, etc… Every dona­tion is wel­come — no mat­ter how small. Please send your dona­tion to:

Stop New Nuclear
c/o 5 Cale­don­ian Road
Lon­don N1 9DX

Or donate online at http://stopnewnuclear.org.uk/donate

Action Update + Summer Gathering + website

The lat­est EF! Action Update is out — down­load it, sub­scribe and dis­trib­ute.

The Sum­mer Gath­er­ing is com­ing up — see here for the loca­tion and pro­gramme, and here for more details

The lat­est EF! Action Update is out — down­load it, sub­scribe and dis­trib­ute.

The Sum­mer Gath­er­ing is com­ing up — see here for the loca­tion and pro­gramme, and here for more details

This web­site got a bit sick, but all is pret­ty much bet­ter now.

Latest Action Update

Climb­ing, block­ing, stink­ing, sab­bing earth defend­ers rock!
Roll on down to the EF! Sum­mer Gath­er­ing in mid-August.

Paint-throw­ing, blockad­ing, riot­ing, board­ing up offices and gath­er­ing hun­dreds of thou­sands togeth­er — all ways to try and defeat the Nuclear Behe­moth.

Climb­ing, block­ing, stink­ing, sab­bing earth defend­ers rock!
Roll on down to the EF! Sum­mer Gath­er­ing in mid-August.

Paint-throw­ing, blockad­ing, riot­ing, board­ing up offices and gath­er­ing hun­dreds of thou­sands togeth­er — all ways to try and defeat the Nuclear Behe­moth.

Blockad­ing coal in Bangladesh, cop­per min­ing in Peru, Ital­ian eco­tage against incin­er­a­tion, Greek fire­bombs oppos­ing land­fill, pro-rick­shaw car-smash­ing in India, actions and camp­ing to pro­tect the Tas­man­ian forests, and anti-min­ing trash­ing of many things in Indonesia…just a taste from around the world of how peo­ple cam­paign to stop the destruc­tion of the earth and it’s inhab­i­tants.

More news from the front lines: trav­ellers dig­ging in, mobile phone mast torch­ing, a first time hunt sabber’s diary, the lat­est from the GM ‘anti-lob­by’, and track­ing new devel­op­ments — UK frack­ing, FFS!

Plus with the lat­est advice from AUn­tie Miffy, con­tacts and dates to get you in the mood for Cap­tain Swing, down­load, dis­trib­ute, sub­scribe and get out there, and stuck in.

earthfirst.org.uk/efau
[- to sub­scribe & get the EF!AU as soon as it’s pro­duced, rather than when we put it up here!]

Bilston Glen Protest Site 9th Birthday Party

25 June at 12:00 — 26 June at 23:30
Loca­tion: Bil­ston glen woods, Mid­loth­i­an

25 June at 12:00 — 26 June at 23:30
Loca­tion: Bil­ston glen woods, Mid­loth­i­an

More info
To cel­e­brate the 9th year of resis­tance to the destruc­tive and unnec­es­sary A701 bypass, we at bil­ston glen protest site invite you to 2 days of work­shops and enter­tain­ment, on sat­ur­day 25th and sun­day 26th june there will be work­shops and food through the day and music and mad­ness by night, with punk, acoustic, folk and elec­tro per­form­ers . if you plan on spend­ing the week­end please remem­ber to bring a tent and all your nice friends!

Bands (more t.b.a)

OI Pol­loi
Total Bloody Chaos
T34
X And The Apes
Dad­dy No
Pud­dock Stew
Malakan­dra
Mali­cious Mis­chief
Buff
Over­spill
Per­ma­nent French
Fre­sa’s Mag­ic Per­form­ing Hat 😉
Chris Hay­worth

Any bands wish­ing to per­form please mes­sage us, but please be aware that this event is to try to raise some funds for site so we can­not pay for fuel etc. for bands.

HOW TO FIND US!!!
By bike — from city cen­tre, go down the bridges / nichol­son street towards cameron toll. turn right at cameron toll and take the A701 towards Pen­nicuik & you´ll get to Bil­ston. There is a met­al gate on your left, oppo­site the VW garage and right next to the first bus stop in bil­ston…

by bus — take the 37, 47 or X47 from Edin­burgh (bridges/clerk st/nicholson st) towards Penicuik, get off at the 1st bus stop in Bil­ston oppo­site a VW garage, the met­al gate is right next to the bus stop.…..go through the wee met­al gate & down the path till you come to the bridge & you’ll see us!

by car- Bil­ston is locat­ed on the A701, abot 6 miles south of Edin­burgh city cen­tre, the best place to park is on the bil­ston glen indus­tri­al estate, to get into the ind. est once on the A701 turn onto the A768 towards Loan­head then onto dry­den road, the bil­ston glen indus­r­i­al estate is quite well sign post­ed so it should be easy enough to find

https://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=168497236548464

Call out for workshops for EF! Summer Gathering 2011

This year’s Earth First Sum­mer Gath­er­ing takes place in East Anglia this year, start­ing on the 10th of August and run­ning for five days. With six work­shops tents we have space for over 100 dis­cus­sions, pre­sen­ta­tions and work­shops. The spaces are fill­ing up fast, but there is still time to book a spot.

This year’s Earth First Sum­mer Gath­er­ing takes place in East Anglia this year, start­ing on the 10th of August and run­ning for five days. With six work­shops tents we have space for over 100 dis­cus­sions, pre­sen­ta­tions and work­shops. The spaces are fill­ing up fast, but there is still time to book a spot. So if you’ve got an idea you wish to high­light, whether it’s relat­ed to eco­log­i­cal defence or social resis­tance here is your chance. The gath­er­ing is attend­ed by hun­dreds of indi­vid­u­als inter­est­ed and par­tic­i­pat­ing in strug­gles around the UK and Europe.

To get in touch just email efsummergathering2011announce@riseup.net with a blurb of for you work­shop or dis­cus­sion and we’ll do our best to fit you in.

For month­ly email updates for the gath­er­ing sub­scribe to efsummergathering@lists.riseup.net

The Spuds don’t work. *Norwich, noon, 23rd July 2011.*

British tri­als of genet­i­cal­ly mod­i­fied blight resis­tant spuds have been fail­ing for the last ten years. But a con­ven­tion­al­ly bred vari­ety of blight resis­tant pota­toes has been avail­able for 3 years. So why are we still pay­ing for their dan­ger­ous exper­i­ment?

British tri­als of genet­i­cal­ly mod­i­fied blight resis­tant spuds have been fail­ing for the last ten years. But a con­ven­tion­al­ly bred vari­ety of blight resis­tant pota­toes has been avail­able for 3 years. So why are we still pay­ing for their dan­ger­ous exper­i­ment?

Come ride with us on the back of a trail­er load of safe effec­tive spuds as we go to deliv­er them to the Sains­bury Lab­o­ra­to­ry out­side Nor­wich. It’s one of only two pos­si­ble open air tri­als for GM crops in Britain this year. Yet despite being pub­licly fund­ed, it’s so secre­tive no one will even say if it’s been plant­ed. Join us for tunes, chips and good cheer as we go and show them that we have already got the answers they say they’re look­ing for.

****************************************

*A tale of two spuds…*
For the last 10 years, researchers at the Sains­bury lab­o­ra­to­ry at the John Innes Cen­tre in Nor­wich have spent 1.7 mil­lion pounds of pub­lic mon­ey fail­ing to devel­op a genet­i­cal­ly mod­i­fied pota­to resis­tant to the fun­gal dis­ease blight. This project is so secre­tive and unac­count­able that the lab­o­ra­to­ry has refused to even con­firm if a tri­al has been plant­ed this sea­son, or if they’ve been forced to aban­don any hopes of mak­ing the tech­nol­o­gy work. Pub­lic rejec­tion of the risks asso­ci­at­ed with eat­ing genet­i­cal­ly mod­i­fied food means that even if the engi­neer­ing involved was suc­cess­ful, there would be no mar­ket for the crop. Mean­while, 3 years ago a small Welsh research char­i­ty ded­i­cat­ed to con­ven­tion­al breed­ing tech­niques devel­oped a spud that is spec­tac­u­lar­ly resis­tant to blight. Not only does the crop pose no threat to health, the envi­ron­ment, or neigh­bour­ing farm­ers; it works. Over 6 dif­fer­ent vari­eties are now avail­able, and being grown on a com­mer­cial scale.

*Deliv­er­ing the answer to GM crops- *

We think the Sains­bury’s lab­o­ra­to­ry and the gov­ern­ment should be told that we’ve found the pota­toes they’re look­ing for. So we’re going to deliv­er them to the doors of their research cen­tre. We’ll be form­ing a car­ni­val pro­ces­sion of fam­i­lies and farm­ers led by the next gen­er­a­tion on ped­al trac­tors, each tow­ing a mini trail­er of safe spuds. There’ll be ped­al pow­ered tunes, and a full sized trac­tor to jump on. There will almost cer­tain­ly be chips.

*The ratio­nale*
The cam­paign against GM crops ten years ago was so suc­cess­ful that GM almost com­plete­ly van­ished from our fields and super­mar­kets, and many peo­ple have for­got­ten the issues asso­ci­at­ed with the tech­nol­o­gy. But in many oth­er parts of the world peas­ant farm­ers have been des­per­ate­ly fight­ing its spread, and laws are chang­ing in Europe that would make it much eas­i­er for GM to be grown in Britain. Despite pre-elec­tion promis­es to the con­trary the coali­tion claims it intends to be ‘the most pro GM this coun­try has ever seen’.

Let’s call time on an out­mod­ed tech­nol­o­gy that con­tin­ues to waste mon­ey in fail­ing projects, while simul­ta­ne­ous­ly threat­en­ing the very sci­ence that’s actu­al­ly pro­duc­ing work­ing alter­na­tives quick­ly and cheap­ly. For too long the biotech com­pa­nies have gone unchal­lenged in their claims that GM can cre­ate gen­uine­ly use­ful crops when in fact all the sig­nif­i­cant advance­ments in the last decade have come through con­ven­tion­al breed­ing. With the renewed threat of GM on the hori­zon cam­paign­ers need to get togeth­er again to show the rest of the coun­try (and each oth­er) that we’re still here, and we’ve got an even bet­ter case than ever. This is a chance to take the ini­tia­tive with the media, to tell a sto­ry which explains clear­ly and prac­ti­cal­ly why the pro GM lob­by is wrong. That it’s us, and not the cor­po­ra­tions that have the answers to the food cri­sis. And we know how to turn them into an irre­sistible pho­to shoot.

*Our Key media mes­sages*
Genet­ic Mod­i­fi­ca­tion is unac­count­able, expen­sive, and it does­n’t work. We need to stop wast­ing pub­lic mon­ey on some­thing that no one wants and start cel­e­brat­ing the real advances in agri­cul­ture.

*What we need*

You, and the peo­ple you know, and any­one you think might be inter­est­ed.

This project is being worked on by Stop GM in con­junc­tion with the Genet­ic Engi­neer­ing Net­work. It’s a grass­roots ini­tia­tive that evolved after one nation­al gath­er­ing, sev­er­al months of pon­der­ing and an over excit­ed long week­end in Wales. Sev­er­al expe­ri­enced grass­roots cam­paign­ers will be work­ing on the project from now until the event, but we need help get­ting the word out. If you think you could help by dis­trib­ut­ing email infor­ma­tion about the event, drop­ping it about in any social media you may be involved in, let­ting your local grow­ing projects or social jus­tice groups know, dis­trib­ut­ing our soon to be pro­duced ‘Lit­tle Red Trac­tor and the Quest of the GM-free Spuds’ leaflet or even orga­niz­ing a coach to attend from your area, we’d love to hear from you.

For more infor­ma­tion please check brief­ing to help you object to pro­posed field tri­al of GM pota­toes (http://www.gmfreeze.org/uploads/63A_spud_briefing_jic_final.pdf), and how to get hold of the solu­tion www.sarvari-trust.org.

Please put it in your diary, for­ward this mes­sage on to any­one who might be inter­est­ed, and hope­ful­ly we’ll see you there.

All the best,

The Stop GM Crew.

http://stopgm.org.uk/

Land is Ours autumn gathering 2011

The Land Is Ours
Autumn Gath­er­ing 2011

TLIO are host­ing a week­end gath­er­ing from Sat 8th to Sun 9th Octo­ber this year at Monk­ton Wyld Court, near Axmin­ster, Dorset. Come and enjoy a feast of inspi­ra­tional talks, open dis­cus­sions, work­shops and evening enter­tain­ment in the pleas­ant­ly eccen­tric set­ting of Monk­ton Wyld.

Talks and work­shops will include the fol­low­ing themes:

The Land Is Ours
Autumn Gath­er­ing 2011

TLIO are host­ing a week­end gath­er­ing from Sat 8th to Sun 9th Octo­ber this year at Monk­ton Wyld Court, near Axmin­ster, Dorset. Come and enjoy a feast of inspi­ra­tional talks, open dis­cus­sions, work­shops and evening enter­tain­ment in the pleas­ant­ly eccen­tric set­ting of Monk­ton Wyld.

Talks and work­shops will include the fol­low­ing themes:

• The need for land redis­tri­b­u­tion — post Peak-Oil

• Agri­cul­tur­al sub­si­dies — who for & for what?/Campaigning against Mega­farms.

• The Local­ism Bill and oth­er Plan­ning Reforms — Threats and Oppor­tu­ni­ties.

• Defend­ing pub­lic forests.

• Set­ting up land trusts, for hous­ing and land projects.

• Reclaim the Fields and Via Campesina.

• What future for direct action land cam­paigns?

Oth­er pro­pos­als for work­shops etc are wel­come.

Places are lim­it­ed so please book ear­ly. There is no fee for atten­dance, but lunch and sup­per are pro­vid­ed at £6 per meal, and bed and break­fast costs per night are £25 for a bed, £15 for a yoga mat in the main hall, or £10 camp­ing (there will be a lim­it­ed no of places half-price for the main hall and camp­ing), avail­able Fri­day, Sat­ur­day and Sun­day evening. Please book in advance, by con­tact­ing

info@tlio.org.uk or 01297 561359
http://www.tlio.org.uk/TLIO-autumngathering2011

Please Note: There may be a TLIO Sum­mer Gath­er­ing hap­pen­ing in the West Coun­try area this sum­mer as well. Keep check­ing the web­site for fur­ther announce­ments

Coal protesters show solidarity with the people of South Mongolia, and stand against China’s crackdown on freedom of expression

Today, 30th May 2011, a small group of anti-coal pro­test­ers ral­lied to a call out by South Mon­go­lian human rights activists for glob­al protest [1] and held a short vig­il out­side the Chi­nese Con­sulate in Edin­burgh.

Today, 30th May 2011, a small group of anti-coal pro­test­ers ral­lied to a call out by South Mon­go­lian human rights activists for glob­al protest [1] and held a short vig­il out­side the Chi­nese Con­sulate in Edin­burgh. This comes at the end of a month of protests in Mon­go­lia against the Chi­nese coal indus­tries destruc­tion of Mon­go­lian herders land in which two peo­ple have been killed. One was a Mon­go­lian herder and local anti-coal activist, Mer­gen, who was delib­er­ate­ly run over by by a coal truck while try­ing to stop it from tak­ing short cuts across herders land on the 10th of May. Accord­ing to the Guardian anoth­er pro­test­er was killed four days lat­er [2].

These protests have rat­tled the Chi­nese state, which has respond­ed with bru­tal crack-downs, and total cen­sor­ship. Cities in South Mon­go­lia are awash with para-mil­i­tary police and intense sur­veil­lance as areas are placed under Mar­tial Law [3]. Inter­net a phone com­mu­ni­ca­tion has been shut down. This is a con­tin­u­a­tion of the repres­sion of peo­ple who dare to stand up for the rights of Mon­go­lians. One case of par­tic­u­lar con­cern to the South Mon­go­lia Human Rights Infor­ma­tion Cen­tre is that of Mr Hada and his fam­i­ly [4].

The Inner Mon­go­lia Autonomous Region (IMAR) has been hit hard dur­ing what one human rights organ­i­sa­tion is call­ing the “coal rush.” Last year IMAR’s coal exports exceed­ed 700 mil­lion tons, with an esti­mat­ed 732.3 bil­lion tons of coal reserves still under the ground. This extrac­tion has come at the expense of the local pop­u­la­tion and envi­ron­ment. The Mon­go­lian peo­ple who have herd­ed live­stock on the land for gen­er­a­tions are now being thrown from their land and Chi­nese coal cor­po­ra­tions are mov­ing in to dig up the coal. Dur­ing the extrac­tion con­voys of coal trucks have been tak­ing short cuts through herders land, destroy­ing fences and live­stock. Bayagu­ut, a South­ern Mon­go­lian cyber dis­si­dent, said “this real­ly is a three-dimen­sion­al attack on us by the Chi­nese: they have destroyed our land, pol­lut­ed our air, and now dig­ging up what we have below ground. What we will be left with is a bar­ren land unin­hab­it­able to human beings.” [5]

The protest in Edin­burgh was held at mid­day and the group held plac­ards with slo­gans such as “End Chi­na’s Coal Rush” “Jus­tice For Mer­gen Killed By The Coal Indus­try” and “Stop The Killings In South­ern Mon­go­lia!” One also called for the release of polit­i­cal pris­on­ers in Mon­go­lia. The protest was organ­ised at short notice by peo­ple from Coal Action Scot­land, a group which takes direct action and works with com­mu­ni­ties fac­ing the coal indus­try in Scot­land.

Luke Dou­glas, who attend­ed the protest, said “It’s real­ly impor­tant to show sol­i­dar­i­ty with the peo­ple of South­ern Mon­go­lia, and to show the Chi­nese state that there are peo­ple out­side of Mon­go­lia and out­side of their con­trol who are watch­ing what’s going on. The bru­tal repres­sion of the herders and stu­dents protest­ing is despi­ca­ble. Peo­ple should not be impris­oned just for call­ing for human rights and cul­tur­al and polit­i­cal free­dom. I am inspired by the brav­ery by the peo­ple protest­ing in South­ern Mon­go­lia, and hope that today’s protest helps them in some way.”

Tam­my Price added “I’ve worked with com­mu­ni­ties in Scot­land who have been affect­ed by the Coal indus­try. The health and envi­ron­men­tal impacts of the open casts, plus the dis­rup­tion caused by the trans­port of the coal, are dev­as­tat­ing. It’s impor­tant to have a glob­al per­spec­tive on coal as an issue, as it is one that affects peo­ple all across the world. As well as peo­ple in Scot­land, we have pre­vi­ous­ly heard from those in Indone­sia [6], Colum­bia [7] and the US [8] fight­ing against the Coal indus­try. The coal indus­try glob­al­ly is respon­si­ble for envi­ron­men­tal destruc­tion, human rights abus­es, cor­rup­tion and colo­nial­ism on a scale dif­fi­cult to fath­om until you start mak­ing these links between peo­ple affect­ed on a glob­al scale.”

Coal Action Scot­land

media@coalactionscotland.org.uk

1. http://www.smhric.org/news_384.htm

2. http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/may/30/mongolia-protests-communist-party-crackdown

3. http://www.smhric.org/news_385.htm

4. http://www.smhric.org/Hada/Hada.htm

5 http://www.smhric.org/news_376.htm

6 http://coalactionscotland.org.uk/?p=2197

7 http://coalactionscotland.org.uk/?p=1433

8 http://coalactionscotland.org.uk/?p=2553

squatting stories wanted

Call­ing All Squat­ters!

Got any pos­i­tive, fun­ny or ran­dom sto­ries from your squat­ting expe­ri­ences?

We’re putting togeth­er an exhi­bi­tion and zine with pos­i­tive squat­ting sto­ries to con­tra­dict and show the oth­er side to squat­ting, to the one regur­gi­tat­ed again and again by the main­stream media.

Call­ing All Squat­ters!

Got any pos­i­tive, fun­ny or ran­dom sto­ries from your squat­ting expe­ri­ences?

We’re putting togeth­er an exhi­bi­tion and zine with pos­i­tive squat­ting sto­ries to con­tra­dict and show the oth­er side to squat­ting, to the one regur­gi­tat­ed again and again by the main­stream media.

Wher­ev­er you squat­ted, be it Brix­ton or Kur­dis­tan, or whether you squat now or you did in the 70s, any pos­i­tive sto­ries are wel­comed – the more var­ied in time & place the bet­ter. Some of the sto­ries we have so far include from after the sec­ond world war when fam­i­lies took refuge by squat­ting aban­doned army bar­racks, as so many homes had be bombed in the blitz, as well as some sto­ries of how new­ly arrived Asian fam­i­lies to Britain gave up the coun­cil hous­ing they had received to squat togeth­er in emp­ty estates to avoid the racial abuse they were suf­fer­ing.

Your sto­ries don’t have to be this extreme though, any­thing that is pos­i­tive, fun­ny or in some way a suc­cess of man­ag­ing to stick it up to the land­lords or a suc­cess­ful use of squat­ting for a protest or cam­paign, is very much wel­comed. The sto­ries don’t have to be your own expe­ri­ences but can be ones of friends, or ones you’ve heard, just so long as they are true.

Any good pic­tures you might have that can accom­pa­ny the sto­ries would be bril­liant too. Also, if you have pic­tures of trans­for­ma­tions you’ve made turn­ing a destroyed build­ing into a beau­ti­ful home, they would also be real­ly appre­ci­at­ed. Of course you can be com­plete­ly anony­mous from any­thing you con­tribute.

Email sto­ries & stuff to homemade@lorax.org.uk

Many thanks!

Common Ground For Climate Action, 4–5 June 2011

Com­mon Ground for Cli­mate Action (the meet­ing after CC Space for Change)

A meet­ing facil­i­tat­ed by the Rhi­zome Col­lec­tive

DATE: 10:30am 4th June – 5:30pm 5th June
VENUE: Grow Heathrow, Sip­son, West Lon­don

Who is this meet­ing for?

Peo­ple who:
— have pre­vi­ous­ly been involved in organ­is­ing CFCA or oth­er rad­i­cal grass­roots cli­mate action
AND

Com­mon Ground for Cli­mate Action (the meet­ing after CC Space for Change)

A meet­ing facil­i­tat­ed by the Rhi­zome Col­lec­tive

DATE: 10:30am 4th June – 5:30pm 5th June
VENUE: Grow Heathrow, Sip­son, West Lon­don

Who is this meet­ing for?

Peo­ple who:
— have pre­vi­ous­ly been involved in organ­is­ing CFCA or oth­er rad­i­cal grass­roots cli­mate action
AND
— have ener­gy to pos­i­tive­ly explore options and strate­gies for
co-ordi­nat­ing nation­al­ly into the future.

This meet­ing is NOT:
— A place to revis­it the deci­sion to pause nation­al cli­mate camp
activ­i­ties in 2011 (though we will talk about the var­i­ous reac­tions to that deci­sion)
— A place to talk about what to do with Cli­mate Camp resources (this will need to be lat­er on)

We will be:
— Learn­ing about and explor­ing our com­mon ground in three key areas:
* What is hap­pen­ing in the wider world?
* Where do we fit?
* What future impact could we have?
— Explor­ing ways to man­age dis­agree­ment, live with dif­fer­ence, and build trust

ARE YOU COMING?
If you’re inter­est­ed in com­ing please email
spaceforchange@climatecamp.org.uk (by 26 May if pos­si­ble for plan­ning).
Fol­low this link for lots more infor­ma­tion about the back­ground to the meet­ing, as well as venue details and the agen­da so far:
http://www.climatecamp.org.uk/events/2011/06/04/common-ground-for-climate-action

KITCHEN CO-ORDINATORS NEEDED
We are in urgent need of kitchen co-ordi­na­tors, if you think you can do this then please con­tact spaceforchange@climatecamp.org.uk ASAP

SATURDAY NIGHT SOCIAL
If you would be inter­est­ed in organ­is­ing some live music or a social for this event, then please email spaceforchange@climatecamp.org.uk

WHO ELSE IS COMING?
Please for­ward this mes­sage to any­one you think would be inter­est­ed in com­ing