Category: South East England

South East Eng­land

Photographers turn out in solidarity against new “terror law”.

Repost­ed: 16.02.2009: every­one knows Indy­medi­a’s a cop­per’s favourite read, but after a cou­ple of hun­dred snap­pers turned up out­side the yard this morn­ing they’ll be queu­ing up today to see whose mug’s on the wire.

Photographing gun copsRepost­ed: 16.02.2009: every­one knows Indy­medi­a’s a cop­per’s favourite read, but after a cou­ple of hun­dred snap­pers turned up out­side the yard this morn­ing they’ll be queu­ing up today to see whose mug’s on the wire.

Because snuck in today under the usu­al cov­er of the war against ter­ror came Sec­tion 76 of the Counter-Ter­ror­ism Act 2008.

This crim­i­nalis­es any­one ‘elic­it­ing, pub­lish­ing or com­mu­ni­cat­ing infor­ma­tion on mem­bers of the armed forces, intel­li­gence ser­vices and police offi­cers which is “like­ly to be use­ful to a per­son com­mit­ting or prepar­ing an act of ter­ror­ism”.

But giv­en the police’s reg­u­lar and bla­tant mis­use of oth­er laws such as Sec­tion 44 of the exist­ing Ter­ror­ism Act and Sec­tion 1 of PACE, pho­tog­ra­phers feel it’s a rac­ing cer­tain­ty that it’ll get used to sup­press evi­dence the police don’t want used against them.

“I can see it now”, wrote pho­tog­ra­ph­er Marc Vallee in Thurs­day’s Guardian ( http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/feb/11/police-terrorism-photography-liberty-central) “If you don’t stop tak­ing pic­tures of me hit­ting this pro­test­er on the head, I’m going to nick you under sec­tion 76 of the Counter-Ter­ror­ism Act 2008.”

At least three legal cas­es are cur­rent­ly pend­ing relat­ing to such police over-exu­ber­ance at last year’s Cli­mate Camp in Kingsnorth, Kent. Almost two thou­sand cops from 26 forces assem­bled at a cost of over 6 mil­lion quid and — hav­ing first harassed and delayed the press — chose to lay in on a reg­u­lar basis on campers with steel batons.

Sad­ly for them these attacks were nev­er­the­less filmed and pho­tographed and this evi­dence stands ready to dis­prove the lies they make in jus­ti­fi­ca­tion for that behav­iour. Imag­ine how much eas­i­er life will be for them in future if those news­gath­er­ers can be tak­en away from the scene under threat of a ten year stretch.

High up behind the mir­rored win­dows of New Scot­land Yard the For­ward Intel­li­gence Team will have been at work pho­tograph­ing the pho­tog­ra­phers for their records.

And they’ll have noticed some­thing new — as well as the usu­al twen­ty or so pho­tog­ra­phers they always tar­get for “report­ing the news the wrong way” there were a cou­ple of hun­dred new faces: work­ing news pho­tog­ra­phers who’ve had it up to the back teeth with being pushed around ille­gal­ly on threat (and some­times the real­i­ty) of arrest.

It’s no longer just an activist minor­i­ty that sees through this sham of repres­sion pre­sent­ed almost as a health and safe­ty issue (keep­ing us safe from the bad men). Polit­i­cal police intru­sion is becom­ing ever more inva­sive, is affect­ing all our lives and fuck­ing up the free­doms we’re sup­posed to believe are (were?) our right.

This new law is just one more sub­tle tool in the armoury of pub­lic repres­sion and this extra­or­di­nary turnout by what is nor­mal­ly an apa­thet­ic and polit­i­cal­ly care­less bunch of pho­tog­ra­phers sends a clear sig­nal that the worm is final­ly turn­ing.

Plane Stupid activists accuse Ed Milliband of plane hypocracy

12th Febu­rary 2008

Miliband interrupted12th Febu­rary 2008
Plane Stu­pid Brighton Activists have inter­rupt­ed a pub­lic meet­ing dur­ing a speech by Ed Miliband MP, Sec­re­tary of State for Ener­gy and Cli­mate Change, unveil­ing a ban­ner high­light­ing the hyp­o­crit­i­cal actions of the gov­ern­ment in rela­tion to avi­a­tion and cli­mate change. The action expos­es the con­tra­dic­tion between the gov­ern­men­t’s stat­ed aim to cut 80% of CO2 emis­sions by 2050 and their plans to mas­sive­ly expand the avi­a­tion sec­tor in the UK. The ban­ner accus­es the gov­ern­ment of becom­ing a “Hypoc­ra­cy” — a democ­ra­cy gov­erned by hyp­ocrites.

The Plane Stu­pid activists dressed in t‑shirts read­ing ‘Ed’s Pop­u­lar Mobi­liza­tion Team’ refer­ring to Miliband’s call late last year for ‘Pop­u­lar Mobi­liza­tion’ on the issue of Cli­mate Change[2]. Fly­ers list­ing the 34 air­ports planned for expan­sion with­in the UK[1] were hand­ed out to the audi­ence, demon­strat­ing the appar­ent lack of gov­ern­ment resolve for tack­ling the envi­ron­men­tal issues that are cru­cial for safe-guard­ing our future. Demon­strat­ing their dis­ap­proval of the gov­ern­ments un-demo­c­ra­t­ic pan­der­ing to cor­po­rate inter­ests, the audi­ence made paper aero­planes, which took flight in the direc­tion of Ed Miliband.

“It is all very well for Ed Miliband to request the pub­lic to take action but it is time for the gov­ern­ment to pro­vide real lead­er­ship in tack­ling cli­mate change.” Said Lar­ry from Plane Stu­pid, “pass­ing the buck is not an option if we are to avoid the chaos and loss of life Cli­mate Change is pre­dict­ed to bring.” The activists feel that their actions demon­strate their will­ing­ness to take respon­si­bil­i­ty in mobil­is­ing around the issue of Cli­mate Change, and expect the gov­ern­ment to sim­i­lar­ly accom­pa­ny their rhetoric with strong action.

“The gov­ern­men­t’s far­ci­cal plans for air­port expan­sion are incom­pat­i­ble with meet­ing the required tar­gets for pre­vent­ing run­away cli­mate change. We are engag­ing with the demo­c­ra­t­ic process in every way we know how, but at the same time the gov­ern­ment has hyp­o­crit­i­cal­ly sup­port­ed con­tin­ued air­port expan­sion.” Said Clare, one of the activists Brighton Plane Stu­pid.

Last year Ed Miliband cham­pi­oned the Cli­mate Change Bill, yet in Jan­u­ary he under­mined this by sup­port­ing a Third Run­way at Heathrow. The actions of Plane Stu­pid at this meet­ing high­light the incom­pat­i­bil­i­ty of these two posi­tions, and chal­lenge not only Ed Miliband but the Labour gov­ern­ment in gen­er­al to be held account­able for their com­mit­ments. Their actions sim­i­lar­ly chal­lenge Nan­cy Platt, Labour Par­ty can­di­date, who will poten­tial­ly per­pet­u­ate this style of gov­ern­ment which is so full of promis­es, and yet so devoid of con­vic­tion. The demo­c­ra­t­ic struc­tures in place have been wor­ry­ing­ly bypassed not only dur­ing the gov­ern­men­t’s deci­sion on Heathrow, but also on Stanst­ed’s sec­ond run­way; where BAA has had more say than both local coun­cils and respect­ed sci­en­tif­ic orga­ni­za­tions, who oppose the planned expan­sions. There is a con­cern that these rigged con­sul­ta­tion pro­ce­dures may become com­mon­place, and this is what the activists do not want.

Brighton Plane Stu­pid activist Lucy stat­ed “Any­one with as much access to sci­ence as Ed Miliband knows that the avi­a­tion indus­try can­not con­tin­ue to expand. Miliband and a host of oth­er MP’s have failed us on Heathrow, prov­ing their words to be as reli­able as quick­sand, the glob­al envi­ron­men­tal sit­u­a­tion does not allow us enough time to see this track record of deceit and hypocrisy grow”.

Mr Mil­liband was inter­rupt­ed but not obstruct­ed from mak­ing his speech in sup­port of the Labour Par­ty can­di­date Nan­cy Platt at the Brighthelm Cen­tre in Brighton.

Ends

———————————————————————————————————————————————

[1] Tak­en from the Gov­ern­men­t’s White Paper ‘The Future of Air Trans­port’ Decen­m­ber 2003
http://www.dft.gov.uk/about/strategy/whitepapers/air/utureofairtransportwhite5694.pdf
Accessed Feb 1 2009

[2] http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/labour/3681149/Ed-Miliband-urges-popular-mobilisation-to-tackle-climate-change.html
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/dec/08/ed-miliband-climate-politics-environment
Accessed Feb 1 2009

Earth First! tree planting weekend in Pennines Fri 13th-Sun 15th March

The annu­al and occa­sion­al­ly hedo­nis­tic oppor­tu­ni­ty to plant thou­sands of native trees on a eco­log­i­cal­ly degrad­ed hill­side is hap­pen­ing in March. Organ­ised by Earth First!

EF! fist tree 1The annu­al and occa­sion­al­ly hedo­nis­tic oppor­tu­ni­ty to plant thou­sands of native trees on a eco­log­i­cal­ly degrad­ed hill­side is hap­pen­ing in March. Organ­ised by Earth First! activists in col­lab­o­ra­tion with Calderdale com­mu­ni­ty group Treespon­si­bil­i­ty we will be based in Heb­den Bridge in Calderdale. If you fan­cy a week­end of hard but sat­is­fy­ing work plant­i­ng native wood­land com­bined with good food and social­is­ing put the week­end of the 13–15th March in your diary.

Earth First! tree plant­i­ng week­end…

Date: Fri­day 13th — Sun­day 15th March

Venue: We will be stay­ing in a camp­ing barn with com­fy beds and heat­ing. Bring a sleep­ing bag.

Trans­port: Get your­self to Heb­den Bridge train sta­tion for a pick up at 6pm or 8pm on the 13th. Pick­ups are avail­able by arrange­ment at oth­er times if you e‑mail in advance.

Food: All food will be cooked col­lec­tive­ly and will be veg­an.

Cost: £25 for the week­end. This includes all food and acco­mo­da­tion. You’ll have to sup­ply you own beer. We will be vis­it­ing the famous Blue Pig pub­lic house on the Sat­ur­day night.

Need more info? Con­tact: treesponsibility@yahoo.co.uk or call 07983743894

Group out in force for the final days of the shooting season + arrest report.

4.02.2009
A quick report from Glouces­ter­shire and Cotswold hunt sabs from the fields on the last Sat­ur­day before the end of the Pheas­ant shoot­ing sea­son.

4.02.2009
A quick report from Glouces­ter­shire and Cotswold hunt sabs from the fields on the last Sat­ur­day before the end of the Pheas­ant shoot­ing sea­son.

On our last walk­ing expe­di­tion through the beau­ti­ful Cotswold two weeks ago our small group of four came into some trou­ble with some of the secu­ri­ty from the Brimps­field park estate our small group of four were pushed around and shoved until we left the pub­lic foot­path which was clear­ly marked on the map. Appar­ent­ly it is fine to assault those who use a pub­lic right of way in the coun­try­side if shoot­ers are hav­ing a fun day’s mas­sacre. The atti­tude of those who pro­vide secu­ri­ty for the Brimps­field Park shoot­ing is far from legal, they open­ly admit on cam­era they know where we live and will be pay­ing us a vis­it, the shoot­ers have ON cam­era refused to break gun, leav­ing activists with tem­po­rary deaf­ness as cham­bers are emp­tied with­in inch­es of the heads of the sabs.

Sat­ur­day 31st Jan saw two land rovers packed with sabs stop five shoot­ers dur­ing a rough shoot in the Cotswolds, after decid­ing to move onto a dri­ven shoot in the area our land rovers were stopped by around 10 police vehi­cles and the while the dri­vers were being ques­tioned by police all sabs went for a nice walk along the foot­paths for a stroll. Unfor­tu­nate­ly although the dri­vers and vehi­cles were released by police they were fol­lowed by the yokels who pulled in front of the vehi­cles and called the police where two activists were arrest­ed for an appar­ent Aggra­vat­ed tres­pass and Sec­tion 5 Pub­lic order for caus­ing some­one to be harassed alarmed and dis­tressed.

One of the beat­ers made a state­ment say­ing that the two (one male, one female) had already been told to leave the land for three months by the police back in Novem­ber, and that they had caused him to feel alarmed, harassed or dis­tressed. They prob­a­bly can’t decide which of those three things they are as they are still look­ing in the “word meanins book” (dic­tio­nary) so they can check the def­i­n­i­tions.

Need­less to say, we will be back for the new sea­son and will con­tin­ue to fight these ani­mal abusers in our area until every last gun is silenced. Whilst prepar­ing for the new sea­son we will be out with our oth­er local fox hunts help­ing to pro­tect our wildlife.

More info check our new web­site below!

Glouces­ter­shire and Cotswold Hunt Sabs
warn@riseup.net
http://huntsabs.wordpress.com

Call out for solidarity anti-nuke actions on 26th April (Chernobyl Day)

A call out for com­mon actions against the con­struc­tion of a new nuclear pow­er sta­tion

A call out for com­mon actions against the con­struc­tion of a new nuclear pow­er sta­tion

Present-day Belarus is a post sovi­et coun­try, on which ter­ri­to­ry a regime, police state in form and neolib­er­al in essence, for­ti­fied its posi­tion. For already 14 years the coun­try is run by one and the same per­son Alexan­der Lukashenko, a pop­ulist at the begin­ning of his gov­ern­ing and open­ly pur­su­ing anti­so­cial reforms now. The free­dom of speech, free­dom of the press, free­dom of assem­bly is not about our coun­try. These basic val­ues as well as the polit­i­cal oppo­si­tion are sup­pressed. Peace­ful gath­er­ings dis­per­sions, polit­i­cal tri­als, pre­ven­tive deten­tions all this has become a norm of polit­i­cal prac­tice in Belarus.

A few years ago the rul­ing top start­ed to con­sid­er anoth­er ven­ture­some project the con­struc­tion of a nuclear pow­er sta­tion (NPS). Lukashenko took a deci­sion regard­less of the pub­lic wish­es and com­mon sense. The deci­sion was made with the active sup­port of the inter­na­tion­al nuclear lob­by. The con­struc­tion is to be under­tak­en by a Russ­ian cor­po­ra­tion Rosatom. It is to be held in a seis­mi­cal­ly active zone, in a dozen kilo­me­ters away from Lake Naroch the largest lake in Belarus, which is eco­log­i­cal­ly unique for our coun­try and is a tourists and hol­i­day-mak­ers attrac­tion. On the con­struc­tion will be spent $4 bil­lion, which oth­er­wise could be out­laid for alter­na­tive ener­gy means devel­op­ment.

But the above-list­ed points pale before the fact that Belarus shared 70% of radioac­tive con­t­a­m­i­na­tion after Cher­nobyl nuclear acci­dent. But the gov­ern­ment and the pres­i­dent are absolute­ly not con­cerned about that. They want to cre­ate a delayed-action bomb in the coun­try, where one third of the ter­ri­to­ry is unfit for farm­ing and berries/mushrooms gath­er­ing.

We, Anti­nu­clear resis­tance, an anar­chy group, come out against nuclear pow­er engi­neer­ing on the whole and against the NPS con­struc­tion specif­i­cal­ly in Belarus. A part of polit­i­cal forces in Belarus, includ­ing oppo­si­tion, sup­port­ed the NPS con­struc­tion. Unlike them we do not believe in NPS safe­ty irre­spec­tive of the polit­i­cal regime, with­in which it is func­tion­ing and being con­struct­ed. Our activ­i­ty is based upon non-author­i­tar­i­an prin­ci­ples, we do not coop­er­ate with any polit­i­cal par­ties on a reg­u­lar base, but with eco­log­i­cal orga­ni­za­tions and grass­roots ini­tia­tives.

On 26 April, the anniver­sary of the Cher­nobyl nuclear acci­dent, an annu­al demon­stra­tion Charnobyl­s­ki Shlah (The Cher­nobyl Path) takes place in com­mem­o­ra­tion of the acci­dent and the peo­ple who fell the imme­di­ate and lin­ger­ing vic­tims of it. Start­ing with the year of 1996 anar­chists take part in the demo with eco­log­i­cal and anti­nu­clear slo­gans. But nowa­days the demon­stra­tion, instead of just mourn­ing and com­mem­o­ra­tive event, is
gain­ing a protest mood: in the coun­try, where dozens of thou­sands peo­ple have died as a result of the nuclear acci­dent after­maths and hun­dreds of thou­sands have acquired acci­dent-caused ill­ness­es or become hand­i­capped, a new NPS is to be con­struct­ed! And that is done accord­ing to the com­mon reg­u­la­tions of an author­i­tar­i­an police state not ask­ing the peo­ples opin­ion, but just con­fronting them with the fact.

On 26 April we will again take a most active part in the Charnobyl­s­ki Shlah (The Cher­nobyl Path), well try to pass along to every­one our clear anti­nu­clear posi­tion, will inform as many peo­ple as pos­si­ble of the approach­ing dan­ger. But now it is not enough! As an instru­ment of strug­gle against the state law­less­ness we rely on the inter­na­tion­al sup­port. We urge anar­chists, envi­ron­men­tal­ists, anti­au­thor­i­tar­i­ans of the world to car­ry out sol­i­dar­i­ty actions on 26 April 2009. We call for a decen­tral­ized day of action of any form, which could help peo­ple learn some­thing about our prob­lem and stop the impu­dent author­i­ty and their spon­sors from IAEA.

If you already take actions on 26 April on your local prob­lems con­cern­ing nuclear pow­er engi­neer­ing, please put on your list the demand for abo­li­tion of the NSP con­struc­tion in Belarus. You are also wel­come to par­tic­i­pate in The Cher­nobyl Path in Min­sk and oth­er actions in Belarus.

Togeth­er we will be able to stand up for the right for life on a clean and eco­log­i­cal­ly safe plan­et!

If you have any inten­tion to make sol­i­dar­i­ty actions with the Belaruss­ian anti­nu­clear move­ment or par­tic­i­pate in the demon­stra­tion in Belarus please con­tact us:

antiatombel@riseup.net

Spread out the call out through any acces­si­ble for you infor­ma­tion chan­nels

belarus anar­chists
http://belarus.avtonom.org

Stop Incineration Now! SchNEWS Film and Roast Fundraiser !

Stop Incin­er­a­tion Now Film and Roast Fundrais­er -
Just released:SchNEWS Film:Wasters:The quirky & inspir­ing sto­ry of a group of cli­mate activists from Stop Incin­er­a­tion Now! & Cli­mate Camp, who occu­pied the site of pro­posed Newhaven Incin­er­a­tor last year, July 2008.
Also featured:The Sto­ry of Stuff.
Announce­ment of Inter­na­tion­al Day of Action against Incin­er­a­tion: 11 July 2009

Stop Incin­er­a­tion Now Film and Roast Fundrais­er -
Just released:SchNEWS Film:Wasters:The quirky & inspir­ing sto­ry of a group of cli­mate activists from Stop Incin­er­a­tion Now! & Cli­mate Camp, who occu­pied the site of pro­posed Newhaven Incin­er­a­tor last year, July 2008.
Also featured:The Sto­ry of Stuff.
Announce­ment of Inter­na­tion­al Day of Action against Incin­er­a­tion: 11 July 2009
and 2 day Car­a­van against Incineration:September 26 & 27 2009

Address: The Cow­ley Club, 12 Lon­don Road, Brighton BN1 4JA
Direc­tions: From frnt of Brighton Sta­tion, turn left down Trafal­gar St to end, then left ont o Lon­don Road, keep walk­ing till u come to Somer­fields, the Club is just a few steps fur­ther down the same road.
Near­est Pub­lic Trans­port: Bus­es on Lon­don Road, Brighton train Sta­tion
Post­code: BN1 4JA | View Map
Time: 2pm onwards
Price: Noth­ing to enter, £3.50 dona­tion for roast
Phone: 07505016362
Email: mkechnge7@wildmail.com
Web: http://stopincinerationnownetwork.wordpress.com

Not Trespassing Walk on Brighton Downs

There will be a NOT TRESPASSING guid­ed walk on the Brighton Downs next Sun­day 25th Jan­u­ary, meet­ing at Housedean Farm, TQ 370 092, at 10.30am sharp.

There will be a NOT TRESPASSING guid­ed walk on the Brighton Downs next Sun­day 25th Jan­u­ary, meet­ing at Housedean Farm, TQ 370 092, at 10.30am sharp.

The Farm meet­ing point is on the A27 halfway between Falmer/edge of Brighton and Lewes, on the north side of the road/eastbound car­riage­way. Lay­by park­ing is avail­able. The meet­ing point is on the Brighton to Lewes Cycle­way. We will be walk­ing won­der­ful Down­land Access Land which the farmer has so far refused to make avail­able to the pub­lic, though he is flout­ing the law in so doing.

The walk will be rough­ly 2 miles out and 2 miles return, though we will be will­ing to con­sid­er a longer return route tak­ing in more sites if walk­ers so wish. The route will often take in steep ground, so it is unsuit­able for folk with mobil­i­ty prob­lems, and for pushchairs. Dogs can­not be brought because there are graz­ing sheep and cat­tle. We will be cross­ing sev­er­al barbed wire fences, and car­pets squares will be avail­able to assist peo­ple across with­out snar­ing.

Bring a lunch snack and a drink, and dress for poor weath­er.

Walk­ers with­out cars are meet­ing in Brighton at the Lewes Road/Elm Grove bus stop at 10.00am sharp to catch the 28 bus. Some car dri­vers will also attend the bus stop at that time to offer lifts. The bus stop is about 12 mins walk from Brighton Rail sta­tion.

Bus­es return to Brighton from New­mar­ket (on the oppo­site side of the road from Housedean Farm) every 20 mins, or walk­ers can go for­ward to Lewes, which has a rail sta­tion.
Walk­ers will be asked to con­tribute towards walk expens­es. We sug­gest a £3 dona­tion for those who can afford it. Come any­way, even if you can’t.

Fur­ther walks will be organ­ised reg­u­lar­ly there­after. The next walk will be on Sun­day March 1st.

CLIMATE ACTION NEWS SHEET 85, December/January 2008/2009

————————-
UPCOMING/ONGOING EVENTS AND ACTIONS:
————————-

1. Camp for Cli­mate Action Gath­er­ing, 31.01.09–01.02.09
2. Earth First! Win­ter Moot, 6–8.02.09
3. Mobil­is­ing for the COP, 13–15.03.09
4. Do It Your­self! Course, 22–27.03.09
5. Fos­sil Fools Day 2009, 01.04.09
6. Coal Car­a­van, April 2009

————————-
UPCOMING/ONGOING EVENTS AND ACTIONS:
————————-

1. Camp for Cli­mate Action Gath­er­ing, 31.01.09–01.02.09
2. Earth First! Win­ter Moot, 6–8.02.09
3. Mobil­is­ing for the COP, 13–15.03.09
4. Do It Your­self! Course, 22–27.03.09
5. Fos­sil Fools Day 2009, 01.04.09
6. Coal Car­a­van, April 2009
7. Earth Activist Train­ing, 11–26.07.09
8. Non­vi­o­lence for a Change Train­ing, Jan-Dec 2009

—————-
RECENT HAPPENINGS:
—————-
1. Case col­laps­es against E.On block­aders, 14.01.09
2. Heathrow’s third run­way gets the go-ahead and activists respond, Jan­u­ary 2009
3. Plane Stu­pid shut down Stanst­ed Air­port, 08–12.08
4. 48 hours of action against E.on and new coal, 28–29.11.08
5. Scot­tish coal rail ter­mi­nal shut down, 15.12.08
6. E.ON forced to aban­don recruit­ment tour, Novem­ber 2008
7. Kel­ster­back For­est Occu­pa­tion (Frank­furt Air­port), ongo­ing

————————-
UPCOMING EVENTS AND ACTIONS:
————————-

1) Camp for Cli­mate Action New Year Gath­er­ing, 31.01.09 – 01.02.09
2008 saw the biggest Cli­mate Camp to date and the most incred­i­ble array of direct action against cli­mate change on record. But what does 2009 hold in store? Regard­less of whether you’ve been to a cli­mate camp, all are wel­come to come along to this excit­ing week­end gath­er­ing. We will be ask­ing our­selves whether there should be anoth­er big sum­mer event and, if so, what it should be. Already there have been many pos­si­bil­i­ties raised, rang­ing from anoth­er rur­al camp to a sin­gu­lar day of action. Oth­er ideas include an urban con­ver­gence or a cli­mate car­a­van. The gath­er­ing will also pro­vide a forum to talk http://climatecamp.org.uk/?q=node/468

2) Earth First! Win­ter Moot, 6–8.02.09
The Earth First! Win­ter Moot is a week­end to reflect on where we are as a rad­i­cal ecol­o­gist move­ment and on where we are going. The moot will be about dis­cussing strat­e­gy, strength­en­ing the EF! net­work, secu­ri­ty and com­mu­ni­ca­tions, and action plan­ning. A ses­sion is also reserved for dis­cussing a UK mobil­i­sa­tion for the UN cli­mate con­fer­ence in Copen­hagen late 2009. The moot will be held in Brighton (t.b.c.). Please check the web­site near­er to the time for fur­ther details and email any items you would like to add an item to the agen­da to moot2009 at earthfirst.org.uk.
http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/21557

3) Mobil­is­ing for the COP, 13–15.03.09
The UN Cli­mate Con­fer­ence of Par­ties num­ber 15 is set to take place in Copen­hagen on the 30th of Novem­ber 2009, and it will be the biggest cli­mate sum­mit ever to have tak­en place. More than 12,000 del­e­gates — busi­ness lead­ers, politi­cians, diplo­mats and lob­by­ists — are going to be dis­cussing an inter­na­tion­al treaty to replace the failed Kyoto Pro­to­col.

Tens of thou­sands of activists and pro­test­ers will be mak­ing their way to Copen­hagen for this major event. In Sep­tem­ber 2008 peo­ple from more than 23 coun­tries met in Copen­hagen and agreed on a Call to Action, call­ing for peo­ple to start mobi­liz­ing and to car­ry out actions local­ly as well as com­ing to Copen­hagen for mass actions.
Anoth­er inter­na­tion­al plan­ning meet­ing will take place in March (13th-15th) 2009 where the con­cepts and strat­e­gy for action will be dis­cussed. http://climateaction09.org/

4) Do It Your­self! 22–27.03.09
A course explor­ing tools for empow­er­ment and grass­roots social change, at the Find­horn Foun­da­tion

Can we man­age our own lives and com­mu­ni­ties at the grass­roots rather than retreat­ing into fear, blame and stereo­types or look­ing to oth­ers to solve the prob­lems? Many peo­ple believe that the answers to the big ques­tions lie in com­mu­ni­ty empow­er­ment, bot­tom up organ­is­ing. This course pro­vides a chance to become con­fi­dent using a range of tech­niques designed to this end and to clar­i­fy our visions for the poten­tial of these approach­es. We will also put aside time to deal with the emo­tions and doubts raised and include a range of short films and con­tem­po­rary case stud­ies.

The main aims of the course are to share with par­tic­i­pants tools, knowl­edges, and ini­tia­tives which can be used to empow­er them­selves and their com­mu­ni­ties, and inspire pos­i­tive social change, based on co-oper­a­tion and sol­i­dar­i­ty. The course will draw on the book DO IT YOUSELF – A Hand­book for Chang­ing Our World edit­ed by TRAPESE (see handbookforchange.org) Email for more info: trapese@riseup.net

5) Fos­sil Fools Day 2009, 01.04.09
Just in case you missed the news – Fos­sil Fools Day is back! On April 1st, join the glob­al day of resis­tance and pull a prank that packs a punch. Call-out now avail­able on the web­site, so help spread the word. If you would like leaflets and/or posters send us an email and we’ll post you some – info@risingtide.org.uk
www.risingtide.org.uk/fossilfoolsday2009

6) Coal Car­a­van, 17.04.09 – 04.05.09
The fab­u­lous cli­mate car­a­van lives on. This time we will be the COAL CARAVAN, walk­ing and cycling between the sites for pro­posed open cast mines and new pow­er sta­tions in the Mid­lands, York­shire and North East. On our route we’ll be talk­ing to local peo­ple, organ­is­ing bicy­cled pow­er films and events, hold­ing pub­lic dis­cus­sions and dis­plays, and link­ing groups from dif­fer­ent areas to help strength­en iso­lat­ed cam­paigns.

Pre­cise details of the route are to be con­firmed, but put the dates in your diary now! Meet up Fri­day 17th April (W. Mid­lands), to start our jour­ney on Sat­ur­day 18th. The Car­a­van will end two and a half weeks lat­er with a grand finale on Bank Hol­i­day Mon­day (4th May).
The car­a­van itself will not involve direct action (although we may offer train­ing, if local groups so request).
http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/21915
/caravan@climatecamp.org.uk.

7) Earth Activist Train­ing, 11–26.07.09
Learn the skills to trans­form a piece of land, a com­mu­ni­ty, and our polit­i­cal and eco­nom­ic sys­tems. Spend two weeks in rur­al Devon learn­ing: Nature and wilder­ness aware­ness, Diver­si­ty in ecosys­tems and social move­ments, Solu­tions that exist: alter­na­tive ener­gy; organ­ic farm­ing; nat­ur­al build­ing; biore­me­di­a­tion & restora­tion, Soil and wood­land ecol­o­gy and much, much more …

On com­ple­tion par­tic­i­pants will receive a per­ma­cul­ture design cer­tifi­cate. The course will be held at Land­mat­ters Per­ma­cul­ture Coop­er­a­tive in Devon. Costs: £200 — £650 slid­ing scale accord­ing to income. http://www.landmatters.org.uk / earthactivisttraining@riseup.net

8) Non­vi­o­lence for a Change Train­ing, 2009
Turn­ing the Tide will offer month­ly work­shops in non­vi­o­lent meth­ods and strate­gies for social change. You can par­tic­i­pate as a mem­ber of the year-group (com­mit­ting to all eleven ses­sions) or only come to those work­shops which inter­est you.
http://www.turning-the-tide.org

—————-
RECENT HAPPENINGS:
—————-

1) Case col­laps­es against E.On block­aders, 14.01.09
Two envi­ron­men­tal­ists, arrest­ed fol­low­ing a block­ade of E.On’s Not­ting­ham offices on Fos­sil Fools Day 2008, had the case against them dis­missed on Wednes­day 14th Jan­u­ary. The case col­lapsed after it emerged that the pros­e­cu­tion had offered no evi­dence to sup­port the charge of aggra­vat­ed tres­pass. The Crown Pros­e­cu­tion Ser­vice (CPS) were found to have been neg­li­gent in their admin­is­tra­tion of the case and were ordered to pay the defence’s costs.
http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2009/01/419126.html

2) Heathrow’s third run­way gets the go-ahead and activists respond,
Jan­u­ary 2009
Both Heathrow and Man­ches­ter air­ports were tar­get­ed Mon­day 12th Jan­u­ary with the domes­tic depar­ture lounges of both air­ports simul­ta­ne­ous­ly occu­pied by pro­test­ers. In Lon­don over 500 peo­ple defied air­port bylaws by stag­ing a sit-down din­ner, forc­ing air­port oper­a­tor BAA to close 18 check-in desks. In Man­ches­ter police used pow­ers under Sec­tion 14 of the Pub­lic Order Act to con­tain up to 100 pro­test­ers on the ground floor of Ter­mi­nal 3, with one arrest.

Mean­while, Green­peace revealed that a plot of land with­in the pro­posed expan­sion site had been pur­chased in an attempt to delay the con­struc­tion.

When the announce­ment came on Thurs­day 15th, ‘cli­mate suf­fragettes’ smashed the win­dows of the Depart­ment of Trans­port (http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2009/01/418697.html) and on Sat­ur­day 17th Jan, 500 flash mobbed at Heathrows ter­mi­nal 5.

For all the details, pic­tures, videos and more vis­it -
http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2009/01/418105.html

3) Plane Stu­pid shut down Stanst­ed Air­port, 08–12.08
50 activists from Plane Stu­pid shut down Stanst­ed Air­port by camp­ing on the run­way and sur­round­ing them­selves with for­ti­fied secu­ri­ty fenc­ing. Plane Stu­pid announced ‘We are gen­uine­ly grate­ful for the lev­el of sup­port from peo­ple who have agreed with us that des­per­ate times call for des­per­ate mea­sures. We have used this action to ask for every­one to ‘please, do some­thing’. We hope that all those that have expressed sup­port for today’s action will now think about what they are going to do to ensure the sur­vival of our plan­et and peo­ple on it’.
http://www.planestupid.com/?q=content/plane-stupid-shuts-stansted-airport

4) 48 hours of action against E.on and new coal, 28–29.11.08
The 48 hours of action was a great first shot across the bows. E.On were rat­tled, local and nation­al media took an inter­est, resources were gath­ered and are now ready to go, a new web­site is now up and run­ning (http://www.e‑onf-off.org.uk/), a list of tar­gets has been com­piled and E.on know that if they try to build a new coal fired pow­er sta­tion at Kingsnorth then they will face a bar­rage of direct action — both towards their dai­ly oper­a­tions and their sup­ply chain. E.on be warned. Actions took place in: Lon­don, Brighton, Bris­tol, Nor­wich, Coven­try, Not­ting­ham & Coven­try and at Kingsnorth itself. http://risingtide.org.uk/node/309

Plus, ‘Green Banksy’ invades Kingsnorth dur­ing the 48 hours: An
uniden­ti­fied group alleged­ly pen­e­trat­ed Kingsnorth secu­ri­ty and switched off almost 500 megawatts of gen­er­at­ing capac­i­ty, cut­ting almost 2% off the nation’s pow­er sup­ply for about four hours.
http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2008/12/414463.html

5) Scot­tish coal rail ter­mi­nal shut down, 15.12.08
30 cam­paign­ers from Coal Action Scot­land togeth­er with local res­i­dents peace­ful­ly block­ad­ed the entrance to the Scot­tish Coal-oper­at­ed Raven­struther coal rail ter­mi­nal in South Lanark­shire for 8 hours. The pro­tes­tors were act­ing to oppose the five open cast coal mines that deliv­er coal to the rail ter­mi­nal and in resis­tance to the thir­teen new open cast coal mines due to open in Scot­land. Pro­tes­tors erect­ed and scaled a 15ft scaf­fold­ing tri­pod, block­ing trucks from enter­ing the ter­mi­nal. Oth­ers locked them­selves by their necks to a con­vey­or belt and a bull­doz­er, pre­vent­ing coal stock­piles from being loaded onto trains. An
esti­mat­ed 6,380 tonnes of coal were stopped from being trans­port­ed from the coal mines to pow­er sta­tions, pre­vent­ing the equiv­a­lent to 11,675.4 tonnes of CO2 from being released into the atmos­phere.
http://coalactionedinburgh.wordpress.com/

6) E.ON forced to aban­don recruit­ment tour, Novem­ber 2008
Anti-coal protests at grad­u­ate careers fairs around the UK forced E.ON to can­cel its recruit­ment tour. The ener­gy com­pa­ny, which is plan­ning to build a new coal pow­er sta­tion at Kingsnorth, Kent, saw sev­en­teen of its careers events dis­rupt­ed. This was a co-ordi­nat­ed nation­al effort from stu­dents involved in Peo­ple & Plan­et, the Coal Action Net­work, and the Camp for Cli­mate Action. Leaflets, ban­ners, fan­cy dress, con­ver­sa­tions with atten­dees and eye-catch­ing stunts were used to embar­rass E.ON and dis­suade grad­u­ates from join­ing the com­pa­ny. The Roy­al Bank of Scot­land, one of E.ON’s main finan­cial back­ers, were also tar­get­ed at the fairs over their role in pro­vid­ing loans to build the pro­posed new pow­er sta­tion.
http://leaveitintheground.org.uk/?p=185

7) Kel­ster­back For­est Occu­pa­tion (Frank­furt Air­port), ongo­ing Resist Frank­furt Air­port Expan­sion — defend the for­est camp. After Heathrow, Frank­furt is the largest air­port in Europe. Fra­port (the com­pa­ny run­ning the air­port) and the Ger­man gov­ern­ment are try­ing to build a new run­way, to mas­sive­ly increase flights. To build the new run­way, Fra­port need to clear 250,000 m² of pro­tect­ed for­est. For sev­en months, activists have been squat­ting the for­est, build­ing tree plat­forms and float­ing rafts to resist attempts to chop down the for­est. Jan­u­ary 2009 is bring­ing threat of evic­tion — and they need all the help they can get.
http://waldbesetzung.blogsport.de/english-information/ or
http://waldbesetzung.blogsport.de/photos/

—————–
Ris­ing Tide UK,
c/o 62 Fieldgate Street,
Lon­don E1 1ES
www.risingtide.org.uk
www.artnotoil.org.uk
www.fossilfoolsday.org
Tel: 07708 794665

See also the Camp for Cli­mate Action (www.climatecamp.org.uk), Net­work for
Cli­mate Action (www.networkforclimateaction.org.uk) and Cli­mate Indy­media
(www.climateimc.org)

———-

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
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EDO smashed — Gaza solidarity action

17-01-2009
Anti-mil­i­tarist activists entered the ITT/EDO MBM arms fac­to­ry in Moule­scombe, Brighton in the ear­ly hours of this morn­ing, where they are believed to have caused exten­sive dam­age to the offices, and to equip­ment used to make arms, includ­ing the ‘zero reten­tion force arm­ing units’ and ‘ejec­tor release unit 151’ which the Smash EDO/ITT cam­paign says are sup­plied to the Israeli Air Force. The cam­paign became aware of the action when they received a phone call from those inside the fac­to­ry this morn­ing who said that they were ‘decom­mis­sion­ing’ the fac­to­ry in sol­i­dar­i­ty with the peo­ple of Gaza, who are cur­rent­ly at the receiv­ing end of the fac­to­ries prod­ucts.

17-01-2009
Anti-mil­i­tarist activists entered the ITT/EDO MBM arms fac­to­ry in Moule­scombe, Brighton in the ear­ly hours of this morn­ing, where they are believed to have caused exten­sive dam­age to the offices, and to equip­ment used to make arms, includ­ing the ‘zero reten­tion force arm­ing units’ and ‘ejec­tor release unit 151’ which the Smash EDO/ITT cam­paign says are sup­plied to the Israeli Air Force. The cam­paign became aware of the action when they received a phone call from those inside the fac­to­ry this morn­ing who said that they were ‘decom­mis­sion­ing’ the fac­to­ry in sol­i­dar­i­ty with the peo­ple of Gaza, who are cur­rent­ly at the receiv­ing end of the fac­to­ries prod­ucts.

The arms fac­to­ry has been tar­get­ted by the Smash EDO Cam­paign for a num­ber of years. In 2005 EDO MBM took High Court action in an attempt to cur­tail protest at the fac­to­ry. They lost the action, which proved to be an expen­sive own-goal as it gave the cam­paign increased expo­sure, and brought it to nation­al atten­tion. In 2008 the fac­to­ry was tak­en over by ITT.

Week­ly protests have been held out­side the fac­to­ry since 2004, and there have been a num­ber of nation­al demos, at the fac­to­ry and on the streets of Brighton. On Octo­ber 15th, the SHUT ITT Demo suc­ceed­ed in shut­ting the fac­to­ry for the day.

Accord­ing to reports in the nation­al media, todays action may have the effect of shut­ting down the fac­to­ry for some time. The BBC quotes Det Ch Insp Gra­ham Pratt as say­ing: “Win­dows had been smashed and offices turned over in what I would describe as wan­ton van­dal­ism, but with machin­ery and equip­ment so tar­get­ed that it could have been done with a view of bring­ing busi­ness to a standstill.…The dam­age is sig­nif­i­cant and the val­ue sub­stan­tial.”

Pri­or to enter­ing the fac­to­ry, the activists made a video (attached) in which they explained their rea­sons for the action. One com­ment­ed: “Israel are com­mit­ting a gross crime now in Gaza. Israel have killed hun­dreds of chil­dren. I think its absolute­ly dis­gust­ing that weapons made in our cities and in our coun­try are being used to kill inno­cent women and chil­dren. They have been used indis­crim­i­nate­ly. If the law and the police cant do any­thing about it its about time some­body else did.”

About 30 police are believed to have attend­ed the fac­to­ry, where they wit­nessed com­put­ers and office equip­ment being thrown out of first floor win­dows. Nine peo­ple are believed to have been arrest­ed and tak­en to the Holling­bury and Wor­thing Police Sta­tions, where police say they are being held on ‘sus­pi­cion of bur­glary’. One pro­tes­tor is believed to have required hos­pi­tal treat­ment.

- from IMC UK

Decom­mis­sion­ers — video/mpeg 127M

For oth­er reports of direct action and protests in sol­i­dar­i­ty with the peo­ple of Gaza, see the Indy­media Pales­tine top­ic pages

Five hundred flashmob at heathrow

[London,Sat 17] Mid­day today, five hun­dred peo­ple flash­mobbed Heathrow’s Ter­mi­nal 5 in protest at the gov­ern­ments deci­sion to give the go-ahead on build­ing a third run­way and yet anoth­er ter­mi­nal. Among the mob were four naked women, lots of red ‘no expan­sion’ t‑shirts, umbrel­las and Heathrow’s largest con­ga dance.

Heathrow Terminal 5 Decision Day Flash mob[London,Sat 17] Mid­day today, five hun­dred peo­ple flash­mobbed Heathrow’s Ter­mi­nal 5 in protest at the gov­ern­ments deci­sion to give the go-ahead on build­ing a third run­way and yet anoth­er ter­mi­nal. Among the mob were four naked women, lots of red ‘no expan­sion’ t‑shirts, umbrel­las and Heathrow’s largest con­ga dance. It was all fin­ished with­in an hour.

The flash­mob had been called for the first Sat­ur­day after the deci­sion on the air­ports expan­sion plans and comes at the end of a packed week of protests which has already seen the domes­tic depar­tures lounge of ter­mi­nal three occu­pied by a Cli­mate Rush din­ner, a plot of land pur­chased by cam­paign­ers in the mid­dle of the pro­pose new run­way and suf­fragettes esca­lat­ing the mil­i­tan­cy of the cam­paign by smash­ing win­dows at the gov­ern­ments Depart­ment of Trans­port.

The week also saw twen­ty four Plane Stu­pid activists qui­et­ly sen­tenced for their part in the blockad­ing of Stanst­ed air­port late last year.

Many more actions are expect­ed and the Cli­mate Camp is hold­ing a nation­al gath­er­ing in Oxford next week­end at which pro­pos­als to shut down Heathrow air­port down com­plete­ly for a day are expect­ed to be dis­cussed.

——–

Attract­ing most press atten­tion were four brave young ladies who had saved the ten quid for a red ‘STOP AIRPORT EXPANSION’ t‑shirt and instead opt­ed for red body paint with a black mes­sage across their midriffs, ‘Sim­ply No Slaugh­ter’ and a pair of strate­gi­cal­ly placed gold stick­ing plas­ters pro­claim­ing ‘art’ and ‘port’ (port was indeed on the left.)

Among them were many of the locals who have led the long term oppo­si­tion to the project, includ­ing some I pho­tographed on the march in 2003 in Sip­son and Har­mondsworth, as well of course as John Stew­art of HACAN and local MP John McDon­nell who many were con­grat­u­lat­ing for his seizure of the mace in the House of Com­mons when the announce­ment was made.

For three-quar­ters of an hour the demon­stra­tors chant­ed, threw red bal­loons in the air and red ten­nis balls at an ‘Aunt Sal­ly’ of Trans­port Sec­re­tary Geoff Hoon and con­ga’ed around the area and had there pic­tures tak­en by a large squad of pho­tog­ra­phers includ­ing some from the nation­al press and some TV crews.

They were watched by a few of those wait­ing to check in and rather more police and air­port secu­ri­ty staff who made a loose ring around event. But although the atmos­phere before the demon­stra­tion had appeared a lit­tle tense, with police mak­ing con­tin­ued patrols through the depar­ture area pre­sum­ably look­ing for trou­ble-mak­ers, they seemed pret­ty relaxed — and some were clear­ly amused by what was hap­pen­ing.

Final­ly Stew­art thanked us all for com­ing, and repeat­ed the deter­mi­na­tion of all those involved to keep up the fight to ensure that despite the deci­sion, the run­way will nev­er be built. McDon­nell was giv­en a cheer for his action in par­lia­ment and every­one was invit­ed to take a last chance to pelt Hoon before we all slipped away to the und­e­dr­ground and bus sta­tions.