Category: South East England

South East Eng­land

14 Landrovers covered in Paintstripper

Four­teen 4x4s were cov­ered in painstrip­per in a Land Rover Deal­er­ship near Here­ford in an action against cli­mate change. Slo­gans were also sprayed while the vehi­cles were left to ruin.

This action was tak­en to warn any deal­er­ship spe­cial­is­ing in these cars, that they are a tar­get. Dri­ving one of these vehi­cles is the equiv­e­lent to leav­ing the TV on for 32 years, cars like this must be stopped in their tracks.

Four­teen 4x4s were cov­ered in painstrip­per in a Land Rover Deal­er­ship near Here­ford in an action against cli­mate change. Slo­gans were also sprayed while the vehi­cles were left to ruin.

This action was tak­en to warn any deal­er­ship spe­cial­is­ing in these cars, that they are a tar­get. Dri­ving one of these vehi­cles is the equiv­e­lent to leav­ing the TV on for 32 years, cars like this must be stopped in their tracks.

Cli­mate Change is the most mas­sive glob­al­ly destruc­tive issue that is fac­ing us today, we can not wait for any­one else to take action but our­selves. The new dawn is com­ing for direct action in defence of the Earth. There will be no more tol­er­ance.

Earth Lib­er­a­tion Front

Next BIG Aldermaston Blockade Monday 19th March

Next block­ade: Mon­day 19th March
http://www.blockthebuilders.org.uk/Blockades.php

This will be the first block­ade since the vote in par­lia­ment last
Wednes­day 14th March in favour of replac­ing Tri­dent. Because of that vote and
the total lack of pub­lic debate and con­sul­ta­tion that pre­ced­ed it, this needs
to be the most mas­sive show of strength ever to tell them that there is,
and there will con­tin­ue to be, mas­sive oppo­si­tion to any new nuclear weapons.

Next block­ade: Mon­day 19th March
http://www.blockthebuilders.org.uk/Blockades.php

This will be the first block­ade since the vote in par­lia­ment last
Wednes­day 14th March in favour of replac­ing Tri­dent. Because of that vote and
the total lack of pub­lic debate and con­sul­ta­tion that pre­ced­ed it, this needs
to be the most mas­sive show of strength ever to tell them that there is,
and there will con­tin­ue to be, mas­sive oppo­si­tion to any new nuclear weapons.

If we can’t stop the next gen­er­a­tion of nuclear weapons by voting…then
we have to use all oth­er means.

The build­ing work at Alder­mas­ton has con­tin­ued through­out the so-called
par­lia­men­tary “debate”; mil­lions are being invest­ed in new facil­i­ties.
Right now, work on the Ori­on laser site — a key facil­i­ty for the future of
Britain’s WMD project — is well under­way.

Meet up on Sun­day 18th March at 6pm at the Friends Meet­ing House in
New­bury (map: http://tinyurl.com/beuyo) for a plan­ning meet­ing on the
action on Mon­day morn­ing, and a meal. Please bring a sleep­ing bag and a
mat. More details on http://www.blockthebuilders.org.uk/Blockades.php

Climate Camp Meeting this weekend in Bristol, and Film

Last year saw 600 peo­ple gath­er in the shad­ow of Drax Pow­er Sta­tion for the ten day Camp For Cli­mate Action. This week­end in Bris­tol is the next nation­al plan­ning meet­ing, Sat­ur­day 17th and Sun­day 18th March. The venue is Bar­ton Hill Set­tle­ment which is 5 min from Lawrence Hill Sta­tion.

Last year saw 600 peo­ple gath­er in the shad­ow of Drax Pow­er Sta­tion for the ten day Camp For Cli­mate Action. This week­end in Bris­tol is the next nation­al plan­ning meet­ing, Sat­ur­day 17th and Sun­day 18th March. The venue is Bar­ton Hill Set­tle­ment which is 5 min from Lawrence Hill Sta­tion.

Any ques­tions, sug­ges­tions or pro­pos­als for the meet­ing can be sent to gath­er­ings [at] climatecamp.org.uk.

Last years camp was cap­tured on video and turned into a doc­u­men­tary by Cine Rebalde called Reclaim Pow­er. Copies are now avail­able on DVD in this coun­try from Ris­ing Tide and local groups work­ing towards this years cli­mate camp.

Those in Lon­don can check out the cli­mate camp film as part of two evenings of cli­mate chaos relat­ed films at the ram­pART social cen­tre (see http://rampart.co.nr for details). Also show­ing is the epic doc­u­men­tary The Plan­et, plus Glob­al Dim­ming and The Denial Machine. Addi­tion­al­ly there will be speak­ers and info.

More info on film at http://www.cinerebelde.org/site.php3?id_rubrique=22&lang=en
More info on camp for cli­mate action at http://climatecamp.org.uk

concrete lock-on tips (following Parliament Square blockade)

If they took only 20 mins to demol­ish each lock­on then your con­crete does­n’t sound up to scratch. Don’t mean to brag but a sim­i­lar lock on I once built took them 6 hours to demol­ish with jack ham­mers and angle grinders. In future you need to include some met­al rein­forc­ing mesh or crinkly rebar rods, either off­cuts of the prop­er stuff from builders skips or sawn up super­mar­ket trol­leys are ok. Includ­ing met­al mesh serves not only to bind the con­crete togeth­er but it spreads the shock­wave from jack ham­mers through­out the mate­r­i­al rather than allow­ing it to be con­cen­trat­ed at the chis­el tip. Also good to include some short lengths of blue 6mm rope which pre­vents the forces of dark­ness from being able to sep­a­rate the chunks of frag­ment­ed con­crete which real­ly winds them up. The oth­er real­ly impor­tant things are to use fresh­ly bought cement, be sure your con­crete mix is very thor­ough­ly mixed — absolute­ly no sandy or cemen­ty streaks vis­i­ble — and then poured in less than 20 mins or so and when pour­ing it, don’t do it all in one go but ram or tamp (jig­gle and shake) it in thor­ough­ly into the con­tain­er in stages with the end of a bit of 4 x 2. Your con­crete looks like it has voids in it which is always a con­sid­er­able weak­ness. Good luck with future coura­geous actions.

Lock-on after drillingIf they took only 20 mins to demol­ish each lock­on then your con­crete does­n’t sound up to scratch. Don’t mean to brag but a sim­i­lar lock on I once built took them 6 hours to demol­ish with jack ham­mers and angle grinders. In future you need to include some met­al rein­forc­ing mesh or crinkly rebar rods, either off­cuts of the prop­er stuff from builders skips or sawn up super­mar­ket trol­leys are ok. Includ­ing met­al mesh serves not only to bind the con­crete togeth­er but it spreads the shock­wave from jack ham­mers through­out the mate­r­i­al rather than allow­ing it to be con­cen­trat­ed at the chis­el tip. Also good to include some short lengths of blue 6mm rope which pre­vents the forces of dark­ness from being able to sep­a­rate the chunks of frag­ment­ed con­crete which real­ly winds them up. The oth­er real­ly impor­tant things are to use fresh­ly bought cement, be sure your con­crete mix is very thor­ough­ly mixed — absolute­ly no sandy or cemen­ty streaks vis­i­ble — and then poured in less than 20 mins or so and when pour­ing it, don’t do it all in one go but ram or tamp (jig­gle and shake) it in thor­ough­ly into the con­tain­er in stages with the end of a bit of 4 x 2. Your con­crete looks like it has voids in it which is always a con­sid­er­able weak­ness. Good luck with future coura­geous actions.

Nev­er ever use ordi­nary “build­ing” or soft sand which is only used for brick­lay­ing and will make very crumbly con­crete indeed. You should be using all in bal­last which is sharp sand already mixed with peb­bles. In some parts of the coun­try — most­ly the north — you can’t get this so will have to mix your own using SHARP sand and mixed size peb­bles from pea size up to the size of brazil nuts or so.

First Aldermaston SOCPA arrest on run-up to Trident vote

11.03.2007
At the start of the week that sees a vote on Tri­dent replace­ment (14 March), Juli­et McBride from Alder­mas­ton Wom­en’s Peace Camp was arrest­ed after spend­ing over two hours on a high secu­ri­ty fence sur­round­ing the new Ori­on laser at the Atom­ic Weapons Estab­lish­ment, Alder­mas­ton.

Aldermaston Orion fence protest11.03.2007
At the start of the week that sees a vote on Tri­dent replace­ment (14 March), Juli­et McBride from Alder­mas­ton Wom­en’s Peace Camp was arrest­ed after spend­ing over two hours on a high secu­ri­ty fence sur­round­ing the new Ori­on laser at the Atom­ic Weapons Estab­lish­ment, Alder­mas­ton.

Juli­et was sub­se­quent­ly held for more than 10 hours and charged with Crim­i­nal Tres­pass under the Seri­ous Organ­ised Crime and Police Act 2005. The Attor­ney Gen­er­al must now decide whether to pro­ceed with a pros­e­cu­tion.

Her action was tak­en just before par­lia­ment pre­pares to vote on the gov­ern­ment motion on Tri­dent Replace­ment: “That this house sup­ports the government’s deci­sion as set out in the white paper The Future of the Unit­ed King­doms Nuclear Deter­rent (CM6994) to take the steps nec­es­sary to main­tain the UK min­i­mum strate­gic nuclear deter­rent beyond the life of the exist­ing sys­tem and to take fur­ther steps towards meet­ing the UK’s dis­ar­ma­ment respon­si­bil­i­ties under Arti­cle VI of the Non-Pro­lif­er­a­tion Treaty.”

While the White Paper out­lined its belief in the need for imi­nent deci­sions on replac­ing the sub­ma­rine fleet and mis­sile bod­ies, the gov­ern­ment claims that deci­sions on future nuclear war­heads will not be required until the next par­lia­ment. How­ev­er, work is already well under way on the new Ori­on laser — before any deci­sion is made in par­lia­ment, at an esti­mat­ed cost of over £180 mil­lion (see build­ing work in pic­tures). Ori­on will be able to repli­cate the con­di­tions of a nuclear explo­sion, can only be need­ed and intend­ed to design new nuclear war­heads.

For more info con­tact 07887 802879.

A range of groups are organ­is­ing events to say “no” to Tri­dent replace­ment on 14 March. See http://tridentvoteday.org.uk

info@aldermaston.net
http://www.aldermaston.net

Titnore tree protest camp appeals for help (& audio report)

SPRING is in the air, the birds are singing in the trees and Tit­nore Woods in Sus­sex is once again a love­ly place to be…

With the end of a tough win­ter, the protest camp near Wor­thing has today appealed for help in a spring offen­sive aimed at mak­ing sure it is in fight­ing fit shape as its first anniver­sary and anoth­er rebel sum­mer approach.

SPRING is in the air, the birds are singing in the trees and Tit­nore Woods in Sus­sex is once again a love­ly place to be…

With the end of a tough win­ter, the protest camp near Wor­thing has today appealed for help in a spring offen­sive aimed at mak­ing sure it is in fight­ing fit shape as its first anniver­sary and anoth­er rebel sum­mer approach.

It was set up in May last year to oppose plans for a 875-home estate, access roads and new Tesco mega­s­tore on ancient wood­land and green fields in West Dur­ring­ton.

Top of the wish­list at the moment are pal­lets, long sup­port beams for tree­hous­es, climb­ing equip­ment (not har­ness­es) and climb­ing rope. Also some­one with a van or sim­i­lar vehi­cle who would be able to help clear away rub­bish from the site.

Most of all, of course, there is a plea for more peo­ple! Whether you can spare five min­utes, five hours, five days, five weeks or five months, your phys­i­cal pres­ence in any sup­port­ive capac­i­ty is always appre­ci­at­ed.

Why not get down there your­self and dis­cov­er the kind of envi­ron­men­tal direct action that they thought had gone out of fash­ion after New­bury?

The camp is in woods just north of “Som­er­set Lake”, a fish­ing lake east of Tit­nore Lane. How­ev­er, Tit­nore Lane is very dan­ger­ous for pedes­tri­ans and eas­i­est access is from Ful­beck Avenue, off Tit­nore Way. Take the path at the far east of Ful­beck Avenue, then turn left until there is a large gap in the hedgerow on the left, oppo­site a cleared square of ground on the right, and cross right over to the far side of the field, keep­ing the clump of trees to your left.

It can also be reached via the car park at Tesco’s in Dur­ring­ton, served by the “Pulse” bus route from Wor­thing town cen­tre. Basi­cal­ly head straight on from the entrance to the fields at the back end of the super­mar­ket car park, reach­ing the gap in the hedgerow men­tioned above.

Near­est rail­way sta­tions are Dur­ring­ton and Gor­ing by Sea on the main South Coast line with direct trains from Brighton, Portsmouth and Lon­don.

There is a camp phone — 0780 4245324.

More info: www.eco-action.org/porkbolter
www.protectourwoodland.co.uk

Indy­media Glob­al Report arti­cle on Tit­nore — mp3 5.5M
a piece about the camp made for the Indy­media radio show

ID-DAY — National Day of Action against ID CARDS 26/3/07

DEFY ID CARDS & THE DATABASE STATE

TAKE BIG BROTHER DOWN

ID-DAY

Is a nation­al day of autonomous action against ID cards and the Data­base state.
Across the coun­try peo­ple will be protest­ing against the open­ing of the new ID ‘enrol­ment’ cen­tres.

DEFY ID CARDS & THE DATABASE STATE

TAKE BIG BROTHER DOWN

ID-DAY

Is a nation­al day of autonomous action against ID cards and the Data­base state.
Across the coun­try peo­ple will be protest­ing against the open­ing of the new ID ‘enrol­ment’ cen­tres.

GM Potatoes to be grown in Cambridge — campaign meeting, 13th March

The Ger­man multi­na­tion­al chem­i­cal com­pa­ny, BASF, has been grant­ed per­mis­sion to plant genet­i­cal­ly mod­i­fied pota­toes at NIAB in Cam­bridge from the end of this month.

BASF were forced to pull out of these exact same trails in Ire­land last year because they could/would not com­ply with con­di­tions imposed by the Irish Envi­ron­men­tal Pro­tec­tion Agency. Clear­ly the safe­ty rules being set by the British gov­ern­ment are suf­fi­cient­ly lax so as not to incon­ve­nience the com­pa­ny. No such crop trails have tak­en place in this coun­try in the last three years, after mas­sive pub­lic pres­sure forced the gov­ern­ment and the com­pa­nies involved in the tech­nol­o­gy to back down.

The Ger­man multi­na­tion­al chem­i­cal com­pa­ny, BASF, has been grant­ed per­mis­sion to plant genet­i­cal­ly mod­i­fied pota­toes at NIAB in Cam­bridge from the end of this month.

BASF were forced to pull out of these exact same trails in Ire­land last year because they could/would not com­ply with con­di­tions imposed by the Irish Envi­ron­men­tal Pro­tec­tion Agency. Clear­ly the safe­ty rules being set by the British gov­ern­ment are suf­fi­cient­ly lax so as not to incon­ve­nience the com­pa­ny. No such crop trails have tak­en place in this coun­try in the last three years, after mas­sive pub­lic pres­sure forced the gov­ern­ment and the com­pa­nies involved in the tech­nol­o­gy to back down.

You could have been for­giv­en for think­ing that that argu­ment was over and the anti-GM bat­tle won…but you would be wrong…

If you are con­cerned about the return of GM exper­i­men­ta­tion right here on our doorstep, come along to a meet­ing to dis­cuss how we can resist it. The meet­ing will take place at 3 Fletch­ers Ter­race (off Mill Road) at 7:30 next Tues­day (13th of March) and is open to every­one.

Map to Fletch­ers Ter­race — http://tinyurl.com/2n67hy

Bel­low are some resources that give some inter­est­ing back­ground infor­ma­tion about GM in gen­er­al and the pro­posed trails here in Cam­bridge in par­tic­u­lar.

An arti­cle in The Ecol­gist, 22 Sep­tem­ber 2006
http://www.theecologist.org/archive_detail.asp?content_id=612

Whole load of GM info and links
http://www.munlochygmvigil.org.uk/uk_2006.htm#Anchor-GM-49575

Friends of the Earth Press Release on the GM pota­to issue
http://www.foe.co.uk/resource/press_releases/uk_government_urged_to_rej_30112006.html

WATCH THIS SPACE FOR FURTHER UPDATES ON THE CAMPAIGN…

Call for workshops at the Earth First! Summer Gathering 2007

This year’s gath­er­ing is from 18 — 22 July in Nor­folk, near a main­line rail­way sta­tion.

The focus is on prac­ti­cal skills, but there will also be many of the reg­u­lar diverse and inter­est­ing work­shops.

EF! summer gathering 2007 logoThis year’s gath­er­ing is from 18 — 22 July in Nor­folk, near a main­line rail­way sta­tion.

The focus is on prac­ti­cal skills, but there will also be many of the reg­u­lar diverse and inter­est­ing work­shops.

The idea is to have mul­ti­ple work­shop ses­sions, e.g. four two-hour slots spread over four days build­ing up skills in a par­tic­u­lar area, so peo­ple can learn the basic skills to actu­al­ly do the job at oth­er mobil­i­sa­tions, events like the cli­mate camp — or wher­ev­er. For exam­ple plumb­ing, elec­tri­cal skills, medics…and what­ev­er else peo­ple want to do… It’s not just about the prac­ti­cal skills but also about get­ting to know each oth­er and start­ing to work togeth­er.

If you would like to offer a work­shop please write to:
martinshaw64@riseup.net

Thanks — the EF! sum­mer gath­er­ing col­lect­ing
Gen­er­al con­tact details etc at http://www.earthfirstgathering.org.uk/

please for­ward to peo­ple you think would be inter­est­ed.

Heathrow residents disrupt minister’s speech

6.03.2007

ANGRY HEATHROW RESIDENTS DISRUPT MINISTER’S SPEECH

~ Air­port res­i­dents resort to direct action tech­niques for the first time
~ Marks new phase in resis­tance to air­port expan­sion


6.03.2007

ANGRY HEATHROW RESIDENTS DISRUPT MINISTER’S SPEECH

~ Air­port res­i­dents resort to direct action tech­niques for the first time
~ Marks new phase in resis­tance to air­port expan­sion

1pm — Lon­don­ers fac­ing house demo­li­tions and increased noise from gov­ern­ment plans for expan­sion of Heathrow today took direct action against the plans for the first time. They stormed the stage at an avi­a­tion indus­try con­fer­ence and dis­rupt­ed an address being made by the Trans­port Min­is­ter, Dou­glas Alexan­der.

The res­i­dents from the West Lon­don vil­lages of Sip­son and Har­mondsworth joined envi­ron­men­tal activists from cli­mate action group, Plane Stu­pid, and breached secu­ri­ty at Chatham House. Some unfurled a ban­ner read­ing, “No third run­way” whilst anoth­er went nose-to-nose with the Min­is­ter in front of the con­fer­ence del­e­gates. Oth­er res­i­dents with ban­ners demon­strat­ed out­side the con­fer­ence cen­tre.

Local res­i­dent Dr John Hunt from Houn­slow who went head-to-head with Alexan­der on the stage, said, “For decades the gov­ern­ment has betrayed us with a cat­a­logue of bro­ken promis­es. In the 80s we were told Ter­mi­nal 4 would be the last expan­sion, then in the 90s we were told Ter­mi­nal 5 would be the end. Now we’re fac­ing yet more noise and more con­crete, and this time they want to wipe our entire com­mu­ni­ty off the map. The time for gen­tle per­sua­sion is over. Dou­glas Alexan­der is warned: the fight back has begun.”

He added, “We’re glad to be joined by our eco-war­rior friends from Plane Stu­pid. They’ve done this kind of thing before and have been help­ful with their direct action train­ing over recent weeks. I think it’s safe to say there’s more of this to come.”

Plane Stu­pid shot into the head­lines with their block­ade of an air­port run­way at Not­ting­ham East Mid­lands short haul air­port in Sep­tem­ber. The group have also occu­pied BAA and Easy­jet offices in recent months, and organ­ised November’s nation­al day of action against short haul flights.

Plane Stupid’s Richard George said, “Whist Min­is­ters like Dou­glas Alexan­der preach about action to stop cli­mate change they’re con­cret­ing over local demo­c­ra­t­ic oppo­si­tion to new run­ways with their plans to cater for unnec­es­sary and cli­mate-wreck­ing short haul flights. It’s not sur­pris­ing that hav­ing failed though con­ven­tion­al protest, the res­i­dents have decid­ed to up the ante.”

For interviews/information:

info@planestupid.com
http://www.planestupid.com