Category: South West England

South West Eng­land

Bath Bomb #11 Almost Literary Aerial Bombardment

The Bath Bomb
@nti-copyright: copy and dis­trib­ute!
Issue #11
free/donat ion
June 08
Our pen is a molo­tov, and we’re gonna write all over Tesco!

Shall We Demo Rolf, You And I?

The Bath Bomb
@nti-copyright: copy and dis­trib­ute!
Issue #11
free/donat ion
June 08
Our pen is a molo­tov, and we’re gonna write all over Tesco!

Shall We Demo Rolf, You And I?

Last week saw one of the more bizarre demos in the his­to­ry of Bath Ani­mal Action, as they took the fight to Bath Race­course. The cause was well known ani­mal wel­fare activist Rolf Har­ris doing a gig after a night of rac­ing at the course, which BAA con­sid­ered a tad hyp­o­crit­i­cal bear­ing in mind the ter­ri­ble death and injury and whip­ping rate of race hors­es. (A one in four chance of a race end­ing in death at Bath race course, and much high­er nation­al sta­tis­tic, not to men­tion the fact that only 40% of pur­pose-bred hors­es are con­sid­ered ‘good enough’ to race. Evi­dence indi­cates that many of the ‘fail­ures’ are shot at the sta­bles or slaugh­tered for meat). So opposed to ani­mal cru­el­ty is Rolf, that he even wrote a leg­endary song enti­tled ‘Slaugh­ter on the Ice (shall we do it you and I?)’ in which he con­dones the mur­der of ani­mal abusers. Don’t believe me? You can check it out on the Rolf­sters’ Myspace! Mem­bers of BAA turned up on the night, joined by a two-strong counter demo to encour­age Rolf not to do any more race course gigs and let pun­ters know about the cru­el­ty they sup­port. After­wards, activists head­ed inside, leaflet­ing over 250 cars and, notic­ing a stack of pal­lets by the stage, one scaled the pal­lets and blast­ed Rolf’s ani­mal rights song at him through an MP3 play­er rigged to a mega­phone, while the crowd were shown dis­turb­ing images of horse rac­ing acci­dents. Secu­ri­ty stood by, look­ing uneasy, and formed a line to try and pre­vent activists get­ting on the track (some­thing they had no inten­tion of doing!). After remind­ing Rolf of his own moral con­vic­tions through the medi­ums of song and heck­ling, the activists slipped into the night, job done. What was sup­posed to be the race course’s biggest ever bash turned into a coup for the pro­test­ers, forc­ing the bru­tal­i­ty of horse rac­ing to the top of the agen­da, and dom­i­nat­ing talk and media cov­er­age of the event. And as for Rolf — he even praised the demo in the Chron­i­cle! We even heard a rumour that lat­er that night, a bal­a­clava’d pen­sion­er was heard scream­ing ‘burn, you ani­mal abus­ing bas­tards!’ in an Aussie accent while dous­ing the main stand in kerosene. Shall we do it Rolf?

http://seehere.blogspot.com/2006/07/rolf-harris-canadian-seal-cull-protest.html
http://www.chai-online.org/en/compassion/entertainment_racing.htm

Cli­mate Action Starts on Your Din­ner Plate

Bon appetit! On Tues­day the 3rd June, mem­bers of Bath Activist Net­work and Bath Ani­mal Action proved that, some­times, there is such thing as a free lunch, as part of a nation­al­ly co-ordi­nat­ed day of action on the rela­tion­ship between the envi­ron­ment and food pro­duc­tion. Designed to coin­cide with the start of the UN talks on Food and Cli­mate Change, activists gave out deli­cious veg­an food from 12–3pm near the Pump Rooms on Stall Street, point­ing out the neg­a­tive eco­log­i­cal impacts of the ani­mal prod­ucts indus­try, such as land theft, defor­esta­tion, methane emis­sions, food scarci­ty and aquifer pol­lu­tion. Food for thought, you might say. They also offered a side help­ing of edu­ca­tion on food miles, bio­fu­els, dead­ly agri­cul­tur­al chem­i­cals and GMOs, advo­cat­ing wild for­ag­ing, grow-your-own schemes, skip div­ing, and pos­i­tive local food ini­tia­tives to sink your teeth into, such as the Lon­don Road and South­side Food Co-ops. The stall was much-loved by near­ly all, espe­cial­ly the choco­late torte — although it did leave the near­by sausage ven­dor and Envi­ron­men­tal Health busy­bod­ies with a sour taste.

See here for leaflet: http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendID=103798308&blogID=402206974.

And for all of you who missed it on the day, here’s the recipe for that torte:

1. Line a cir­cu­lar dish with grease-proof paper and smear with a small amount of veg­etable oil
2. Smash up some hob­nobs and coat the bot­tom of the cir­cu­lar dish
3. Melt the fol­low­ing ingre­di­ents in a bowl over hot water, stir­ring: 450g dark choco­late, 5 table spoons of brandy, 5 table spoons glu­cose syrup or liq­uid glu­cose, avail­able from most chemists.
4. When melt­ed, add 1 pint of soya cream and stir.
5. Pour the mix­ture into the dish and put in fridge overnight 6. When you take it out of the fridge, dust with choco­late pow­der.

http://www.networkforclimateaction.org.uk/
http://www.vegansociety.com/home.php

Veg­an­ism, You Can’t Say ‘Fayr­er’ Than That

The week­end of the 31st of May and 1st of June saw a con­tin­gent of Bath veg­gies take a trip to the annu­al Bris­tol Veg­an Fayre. The event was a veg­an’s dream, with bands rang­ing from Aswad to Bad Man­ners, and more free sam­ples of veg­an choco­late than you could ever imag­ine. As well as this, the event pro­mot­ed envi­ron­men­tal aware­ness, advice on healthy eth­i­cal liv­ing, nation­al and glob­al ani­mal rights cam­paigns, and offered veg­an cuisines from around the world, as well as (sup­pos­ed­ly) the largest veg­an bar­beque ever. The debate of much of this year’s fayre was also ‘raw food’ diets and more activisty fare revolv­ing around ongo­ing cam­paigns against cru­el­ty. The week­end was a goodun, and upon tast­ing veg­an cheese ‘Sheese’, the one veg­gie in the Bath con­tin­gent flipped to veg­an­ism, tak­ing her boyfriend with her — result! Oh yeah, thanks to all the stalls who donat­ed food to the Bath free lunch event such as Sheese, Yag­ga and Har­vest.

http://www.bristolveganfayre.co.uk/

Bath Foie Gras Free! We Won!

Final­ly! After a year of relent­less demos, blood, sweat, tears, and a good deal of beg­ging for mer­cy, Bath cen­tre is Foie gras free! The news came after the Roy­al Cres­cent agreed to drop the sick del­i­ca­cy after a noisy demo fol­lowed by what we can gen­uine­ly call a civilised and pleas­ant dis­cus­sion (seri­ous­ly!). After that, it only took a phone call to the Bath Spa hotel to per­suade them to ditch foie gras. The final list of estab­lish­ments who no longer sell reads as fol­lows — Le Petit Cochon (now ‘Pinch’), Epicerie Gour­mande, Beau­jo­lais, Bistro No.5 (who, like Le Petit Cochon, unfor­tu­nate­ly had to learn the hard way what hap­pens when foie gras slips back onto the menu — direct action stylee!) The Fine Cheese Com­pa­ny, Roy­al Cres­cent Hotel, Bath Spa Hotel and Cavendish Hotel, who were up for a scrap, but ulti­mate­ly got KO’d at the end of round one! After a long, hard and often tir­ing cam­paign, we are glad to be able to leave the foie gras cam­paign on a high note after deal­ing with rea­son­able folks such as the head chef of the Roy­al Cres­cent. Nev­er ones to take a break, Bath Ani­mal Action are busy sniff­ing out more ani­mal abuse in the city, and will be check­ing up on cer­tain restau­rants on a very reg­u­lar basis. So, for now at least, from all of us over at Foie Gras Free HQ — over and out!

Smashed EDO

On Wednes­day the 4th June, 5–600 anar­chists and anti-war cam­paign­ers from around the coun­try descend­ed on the offices of bomb builders EDO MBM in Brighton, for a colour­ful and riotous Car­ni­val Against The Arms Trade! A small del­e­ga­tion from BAN joined the throng. EDO, owned by for­mer Nazi col­lud­ers ITT, are the man­u­fac­tur­er of the Pave­way mis­sile sys­tem, used in the mur­der of thou­sands in Iraq, as well as oth­er nasty toys used in the occu­pa­tion of Pales­tine. How­ev­er, their evil has not gone unno­ticed, and they’ve been the tar­get of the 4‑year ‘Smash EDO’ cam­paign [of ‘On The Verge’] fame, forc­ing the com­pa­ny to the loss of a huge court injunc­tion to sell off their Rugged Sys­tems divi­sion, and cycle through nine com­pa­ny direc­tors. The parade start­ed at mid­day on the Lev­el, with sound sys­tems, a crit­i­cal mass bike ride, pup­petry, cir­cus per­form­ers and a gath­er­ing crowd kit­ted out in var­i­ous shades of blood red. The chant­i­ng mass then made its way across the sun­lit reclaimed streets of Brighton to the foot of Home Farm Road, where the com­pa­ny is based, car­ried along by the sound of sam­ba and run­ning police. At last, out­side the offices, and faced by a heavy Sus­sex Police and Lon­don For­ward ‘Intel­li­gence’ Team wel­come, the scene turned into a vir­tu­al music video: baton swing­ing, rock throw­ing, push­es and counter-push­es, all set to the tune of Rage Against the Machine’s ‘Know Your Ene­my,’ and the sound of the police. Injuries were trad­ed, eight arrests were made, one cop­per received a white gloss paint makeover, and the cam­paign lived up to its name, with the trash­ing of win­dows, the direc­tor’s car and com­put­ers. As one ban­ner said, ‘Stop killing peo­ple, you fuck­ing twats.’ Whoop, whoop.

http://www.smashedo.org.uk

Tricky Tesco Tries It Again

Is it a turd that won’t flush? Is it that cousin you’ve been try­ing to avoid for years unex­pect­ed­ly knock­ing on the door? Worse, it’s anoth­er fuck­ing Tesco! Just a quick shout out to all con­cerned with the blood-suck­ing par­a­site oth­er­wise known as Tesco. It appears the store’s prop­er­ty devel­op­ers have pur­chased the Bath Press site in a bid to open their first super­store in Bath. Groups includ­ing Bath Activist Net­work are already plot­ting against Tesco, and the com­ing cam­paign promis­es to be a bit­ter fight, but one that we can win. But we will not win unless we move away from the dour nim­by­ism that has dom­i­nat­ed ‘Bath her­itage’ style protest over the past cou­ple of years. What we need is cre­ativ­i­ty, ener­gy and an under­stand­ing that wher­ev­er Tesco goes, and what­ev­er it does, peo­ple, ani­mals and the plan­et get fucked over. We need — and are busy build­ing — an uncom­pro­mis­ing cam­paign that stands up for Moor­land Road, and all small traders, stands up for the envi­ron­ment, check­out assis­tants, shelf stack­ers, Ecuado­ri­an banana pick­ers and Chi­nese sweat­shop work­ers, all used and abused by Tesco. We will fight Tesco and we will win, but we will not just fight Tesco away from our doorsteps, we will fight it as an idea, in its entire­ty — we will fight against every­thing that Tesco is, and hopes to be. The writ­ing is on the wall Tesco — out of Old­field Park, off our plan­et! To get involved in the cam­paign, Con­tact us at bathactivistnet@yahoo.co.uk

http://www.tescopoly.org/

Bath Bomb Ben­e­fit Bash!

Bath Bomb does­n’t print itself — you do, on your boss’s pho­to­copi­er! But there are still costs involved with run­ning a free sheet, and as always, we’re skint. That’s why we’re using BANers Jon and Fin’s joint birth­day par­ty as an excuse to scrounge cash off the unsus­pect­ing pub­lic. The Gig will start at 8.00pm at the Porter Butt and the sug­gest­ed dona­tion on the door is £4. The line up includes Welsh folk-punk afi­ciona­dos Kiln(A)boy, local dub­sters Dirty Rev­o­lu­tion and psy­chobil­ly leg­ends the Cheater Slicks. We’re also split­ting the pro­ceeds with the Bris­tol Anar­chist Book fair col­lec­tive. Good music, good caus­es, good times, so get your­self down!

http://www.stuffit.org/abookfair/

Bub­bling Under — Cli­mate Camp Spe­cial

On Sun­day the 15th of June, Bub­bling Under will be bring­ing us two mas­ter­pieces of the activist film world cov­er­ing the J18 protest/riots and last year’s Camp for Cli­mate Action at Heathrow. Thrown into the deal will be a speak­er from the Cli­mate Camp move­ment hell bent on talkin’ your ass down to this August’s Camp at Kingsnorth coal-fired pow­er sta­tion in Kent. It is, as always, free entry and will be start­ing at 1pm, and due to the fact that most of Bath’s activists sleep in fields between mid June and Sep­tem­ber, this will be the last Bub­bling under until Sep­tem­ber!

Free­dom To Move, Free­dom To Stay

On Thurs­day 15th May, from 12–2pm, 14 activists from Bris­tol No Bor­ders and B.A.N., pick­et­ed the Bris­tol-based office of the IOM. What’s the IOM, you may ask? Hid­ing behind those three unas­sum­ing let­ters, it’s the Inter­na­tion­al Office for Migra­tion. Beyond the walls of the anony­mous-seem­ing Park­house Busi­ness Cen­tre, 10 Park Street, this shad­owy insti­tu­tion spe­cialis­es in migra­tion man­age­ment: reduc­ing peo­ple to the equiv­a­lent of prod­ucts, they direct the des­per­ate to wher­ev­er cheap labour is demand­ed, and then, when the job’s done, ditch ’em. There’s no job too dirty — when nation­al gov­ern­ments around the world want to wash their hands of the neg­a­tive PR of depor­ta­tion, kid­nap­ping, slav­ery and de fac­to mur­der — i.e. send­ing Iraqis back to war-torn Iraq — the IOM steps in. Need an off-shore, deni­able, con­cen­tra­tion camp to for­get about those pesky asy­lum seek­ers? The IOM’s the com­pa­ny for you! Would you like barbed wire and hand­cuffs with that?

But they don’t just fill a mar­ket niche, like any oth­er busi­ness-savvy enter­prise. These peo­ple deter­mine immi­gra­tion pol­i­cy. They also bribe refugees to go home with cash incen­tives, just so it all seems nice and civ­il — but if you refuse, you get locked up and dragged back any­way. So, in the light of the IOM’s bla­tant breach of every basic human right going, the activists leaflet­ed and spoke to passers-by, lift­ing the lid on the atroc­i­ties of the pen-push­ers inside. The pick­ets will con­tin­ue every month, with the next one on the 19th June.

Mean­while, the day before in Bath, UK Bor­der Agency grunts raid­ed the Ocean Pearl restau­rant in the Podi­um, arrest­ing 7 so called ‘ille­gal work­ers’. This raid was a repeat per­for­mance of that which struck the Cin­na­mon restau­rant of Keyn­sham last Sep­tem­ber [as report­ed in BB#2]. Clair Fen­nessy, run­ning this oper­a­tion, had this to say for her­self: “We car­ry out oper­a­tions like these to put a stop to ille­gal migrant work­ing and its harm­ful social effects.”

Yeah, lady, you’re a saint.

Warn­ing Poi­son Alert

Over the past cou­ple of weeks, pet own­ers in bath around the Syd­ney Gardens/Widcombe area, have been shocked and dis­gust­ed to dis­cov­er a brown syrupy liq­uid that has killed 4 of their dogs and caused at least 20 more to need trips to the vet. The coun­cil denies any involve­ment and has put up warn­ings. The sub­stance, which smells of coal tar/bitumen has been sent to Bris­tol Uni for analy­sis. Dog walk­ers please be aware and if you have any info please con­tact bathanimalaction@yahoo.co.uk

STOP PRESS! So it turns out that the poi­son used was residue dis­charge from fire­works…

Com­ing Up

Roots, Manu­va, Action. Keep your ear to the ground, the Roots Of Change are com­ing. This will be an event on 12th July held in the Green Park Mar­ket from 2–5pm to big up Cli­mate Camp and dis­trib­ute info on cli­mate change issues in gen­er­al. Help make this event colour­ful and well attend­ed!! Con­tact Bath Activist Net­work to get involved.

For fur­ther info on any of our sto­ries see www.myspace.com/bathbomb

EVENTS

Mon­day nights
Bath Hunt Sabs Meet­ing, 8pm, Bell
Wednes­days 4–7pm
Lon­don Rd Food Co-op, River­side Com­mu­ni­ty Cen­tre
Sat­ur­days 11.30am-12.30
Bath Stop The War Vig­il, Abbey Court­yard
25th June, 6.30pm
Bris­tol Anar­chist Book­fair meet­ing, Kebele, Bris­tol
25th June, 8pm
Tran­si­tion Bath Trans­port Group, 55 New King St
28th June, tbc
Tran­si­tion Bath Local and Wild food event Www.transitionbath.org.uk
30th June, 7.30–9.30
Tran­si­tion Bath Ener­gy Group, upstairs, the Ram pub, Wid­combe
2nd July, 7.30–8.30
Bath Ani­mal Action meet­ing, back room of Bell
3rd July, 7.30–9
Bath Activist Net­work meet­ing, Hob­gob­lin
12th July, 2–5pm
Roots Of Change, Green Park Mar­ket
18th July, 9pm-late
Left­ism, pro­ceeds to BAN, £2/3 The Crown Inn, Bath­wick Hill

Q: Who Are Bath Activist Net­work? A: A local umbrel­la group cam­paign­ing on issues as diverse as devel­op­ment, envi­ron­men­tal­ism, anti-war, ani­mal rights, work­ers’ rights and more. Help­ing to pro­duce The Bath Bomb, we are open to any­one, and our mem­bers range from trade union­ists to anar­chists, lib­er­als to greens, and peo­ple who just want to change Bath for the bet­ter. For details on meet­ings, demos, or just to get in touch, ring us on 07949 611912, email bathactivistnet@yahoo.co.uk, or see our web­site: www.myspace.com/bathactivistnetwork

GOT A STORY? WANT TO RECEIVE THE BATH BOMB BY EMAIL? HOPING TO SUE?
Con­tact us by e‑mailing bathbombpress@yahoo.co.uk. Large print e‑versions avail­able on request.

And now, to the dis­claimer: As any­one is free to con­tribute, the opin­ions expressed in each arti­cle are not nec­es­sar­i­ly reflec­tive of each con­trib­u­tor. Nat­u­ral­ly, any right-wing or cor­po­rate bull­shit will be binned and spat on. Need­less to say, the opin­ions of the author of this dis­claimer does not nec­es­sar­i­ly rep­re­sent the views of any oth­er con­trib­u­tor…

World Naked Bike Ride UK

A peace­ful, imag­i­na­tive and fun protest against oil depen­den­cy and car cul­ture. A cel­e­bra­tion of the bicy­cle and also a cel­e­bra­tion of the pow­er and indi­vid­u­al­i­ty of the human body. A sym­bol of the vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty of the cyclist in traf­fic.

World Naked Bike Ride logoA peace­ful, imag­i­na­tive and fun protest against oil depen­den­cy and car cul­ture. A cel­e­bra­tion of the bicy­cle and also a cel­e­bra­tion of the pow­er and indi­vid­u­al­i­ty of the human body. A sym­bol of the vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty of the cyclist in traf­fic. The world’s biggest naked protest: 50+ cities and thou­sands of rid­ers par­tic­i­pate world­wide, includ­ing more than 1500 in the UK in 2007.

http://worldnakedbikeride.org/uk/

To check any details of rides below, see http://nakedwiki.org/wiki/UK

# Southamp­ton: Fri 6 June, 6pm
# Brighton & Hove: Sat 7 June, 11am
# York: Sat 7 June, 4pm
# Sheffield: Sun 8 June, 2pm
# Man­ches­ter: Fri 13 June, 6pm
# Cardiff: Sat 14 June, (time is still being finalised)
# Lon­don: Sat 14 June, 3pm
# Edin­burgh: 28 or 29 June — TBC

# There is dis­cus­sion about pos­si­ble rides in Cam­bridge, Belfast, Glas­gow, Oxford, or even a Bris­tol to Bath ride.

3rd June Food & Climate Change Day of Action — more actions, in Nottingham, London x3, Bristol, Glasgow, Liverpool & Amsterdam

Actions co-incid­ing with the UN Con­fer­ence on World Food Secu­ri­ty and Cli­mate Change got off to an ear­ly start, with Sun­day see­ing the first of an out­break of veg­an food give-aways, in Man­ches­ter, with a spot of guer­ril­la gar­den­ing; the rash spread on Mon­day with GM labs occu­pied. The Ready Steady Skip web­site tried to soothe, but on the day, the action con­ta­gion spread…

Actions co-incid­ing with the UN Con­fer­ence on World Food Secu­ri­ty and Cli­mate Change got off to an ear­ly start, with Sun­day see­ing the first of an out­break of veg­an food give-aways, in Man­ches­ter, with a spot of guer­ril­la gar­den­ing; the rash spread on Mon­day with GM labs occu­pied. The Ready Steady Skip web­site tried to soothe, but on the day, the action con­ta­gion spread…Nottingham Food & Climate day 1Nottingham Food & Climate day 2
Cli­mate change and ani­mal rights activists joined togeth­er in Not­ting­ham today to give away free veg­an food, plants & skipped veg­eta­bles.

Pass­er-bys were enticed to our stall by the offers of free chips, veg­an pasties and toma­to plants. We hand­ed out leaflets about cli­mate change & food and had lots of chats with peo­ple about the world food cri­sis & our solu­tions of eat­ing a local, organ­ic & veg­an diet. An amaz­ing num­ber of peo­ple already grew there own food & lots more were encour­aged to give it a go. We had a real­ly pos­i­tive response from the pub­lic and peo­ple seemed gen­uine­ly inter­est­ed in the infor­ma­tion leaflets we hand­ed out.

More pho­tos.

The next free veg­an food give­away in Not­ting­ham is going to be on the 4th July.

A hand­ful of us then vis­it­ed Fresh & Ecoworks com­mu­ni­ty gar­den based at St Ann’s allot­ments. We had a tour of the amaz­ing gar­dens & saw a bril­liant exam­ple of local, organ­ic food being pro­duced in the city. See
http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/regions/nottinghamshire/2006/08/348168.html
and
http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/regions/nottinghamshire/2007/10/382929.html

We tod­dled off home in the rain, chilli plants in hand, inspired to grow our own.

—–
London Food not Bombs climate food day
Food & Cli­mate Change Action — Lon­don

For the Food & Cli­mate Change day of action, Whitechapel Food Not Bombs and Brix­ton Reclaim Your Food teamed up to serve free veg­an food in front of a Mac Don­ald’s in Cam­ber­well.

The groups had a stall right in front of a Mac Don­ald in Cam­ber­well for two hours, serv­ing out fresh­ly skipped, lov­ing­ly cooked free veg­an food to passers by, and engag­ing peo­ple in con­ver­sa­tion about the link between the food they eat and cli­mate change. For good mea­sure, the group was accom­pa­nied by a bicy­cle sound sys­tem, to liv­en up the atmos­phere.

All in all, over a hun­dred serv­ings were giv­en out, count­less more peo­ple saw the stall and were giv­en leaflets high­light­ing some of the links between food and cli­mate change on the fol­low­ing top­ics : waste ; veg­an­ism ; organ­ic food ; local­ly pro­duced food.

The menu includ­ed a spicy mash, a cur­ry, a pump­kin soup, a sal­ad, some gua­camole, some stuffed aubergines, some veg­gies burg­ers, an apple cake, a fruit sal­ad and more.

Unsur­pris­ing­ly, the Mac Don­ald’s man­agers weren’t too hap­py about peo­ple giv­ing out free food in front of their win­dow shop — but the police seemed to decide oth­er­wise. The groups were asked to remove a ban­ner from the Mac Don­ald win­dow shop, but were oth­er­wise per­mit­ted to stay there as long as there was­n’t too much obstruc­tion.

londonfnb@lists.riseup.net
http://www.londonfnb.org

–

25 pro­test­ers organ­ised by Bio­fu­el­watch and Food Not Fuel, Lon­don came togeth­er for a protest out­side Newham town hall in East Ham on Sat­ur­day to raise pub­lic aware­ness of the plan­ning appli­ca­tion for the UK’s first bio­fu­el-fired pow­er plant to be built, in Beck­ton. Ban­ners and plac­ards quot­ed many sta­tis­tics such as the num­ber of peo­ple going hun­gry because of agro­fu­els and the num­ber of peo­ple who could be fed with one tank of bio­fu­el. Over 500 sig­na­tures object­ing to the plant were collected…it appears that Beck­ton, one of the most pol­lut­ed Lon­don bor­oughs, is pre­pared to fight back.

–

In Lon­don, veg­an cam­paign­ers we took to the streets of Chancery Lane to
treat the city work­ers to some veg­an food sam­ples. The response was good,
with a range of inter­est­ed peo­ple com­ing to taste the food. We gave away
hun­dreds of recipe book­lets, and leaflets for this year’s Lon­don Veg­an
Fes­ti­val.

—–
Bristol biofuels on food & climate day
Bris­tol Protest Over Tesco’s Bio­fu­els Claim

Bio­fu­els far from the panacea to petrol prices and cli­mate change, have added to the glob­al food price hike by tak­ing land pre­vi­ous­ly occu­pied by food crops. A study by the Uni­ver­si­ty of Min­neso­ta found that grow­ing bio­fu­el on con­vert­ed rain­forests, peat lands, savan­nas or grass­lands cre­at­ed up to 420 times more car­bon diox­ide than it saved.

Wheat Prices have dou­bled in the UK over the past year, and con­sumers and retail­ers have so far man­aged to absorb this. But else­where in the world, peo­ple are going with­out wheat (and oth­er sta­ples) and bak­ers are going out of busi­ness.

To illus­trate this issue, a dozens bak­ers (rather than a bak­ers dozen!) will be fol­low­ing up Bris­tol Ris­ing Tides demo in April of this year to illus­trate the true cost of Agro-fuels. They will be at Tesco, East­ville between 4.30pm and 7pm

Ms Bread of Bris­tol Ris­ing Tide said:

“The ques­tion is do we want do feed our cars or feed our­selves?”

Tesco has made false claims about the source of the fuel sold at its ser­vice sta­tions, accord­ing to an inves­ti­ga­tion that found that the chain sold the most envi­ron­men­tal­ly dam­ag­ing types of biodiesel ‑Palm Oil — whilst claim­ing that it ‘s bio­fu­el was sourced from rel­a­tive­ly sus­tain­able UK-plant­ed rape seed oil.[2]

Mr A.Baker of Bris­tol Ris­ing Tide said:

“Its now clear that we leave big busi­ness to deal with cli­mate change, this is the kind of thing that will hap­pen — a bloody dis­as­ter”

At this years Cli­mate Camp (3rd — 10th August) there will be a nation­al day of action against Agro­fu­els.

[1] Bris­tol Ris­ing Tide is part of the Inter­na­tion­al Ris­ing Tide for Cli­mate Jus­tice net­work
www.risingtide.org.uk
[2] The Times,April 14, 2008 “Tesco green fuel ‘adds to cli­mate change”

Leaflet

—–
Taste the Waste
Wait­ing for (social) Change!

4/06/2008
Today in the Char­ing Cross area of Glas­gow a group of wait­ers invit­ed passers-by to ‘Taste the waste’ and sam­ple their free food. The menu was made up entire­ly out of skipped goods from super­mar­ket bins and includ­ed such delights as: home­made veg­an fre­quent fly­er banana cake, skipped chip, res­cued roast veg. and binned beans. This was part of the call to action on Food and Cli­mate Change by the Net­work for Cli­mate Action (http://networkforclimateaction.org.uk).

—–

Liv­er­pool host­ed a free veg­an food fair at its social cen­tre ‘Next to
Nowhere’. Around 50 peo­ple attend­ed and loads of food and infor­ma­tion was giv­en out. The event allowed for a lot of infor­mal dis­cus­sion, with a social area cre­at­ed for this pur­pose. Peo­ple were delight­ed to hear that they can come back for veg­an food every Sat­ur­day after­noon 1–5pm.

—–
Amsterdam on food & climate change day 1Amsterdam on food & climate change day 2
Pigs say: If you care about cli­mate change, eat less meat, milk and eggs

On Tues­day June 3rd, a group of pigs made a small action for a more veg­an Ams­ter­dam. They hand­ed out veg­an snacks to encour­age peo­ple not to buy that ham for din­ner. It may look like the pigs act­ed out of self-inter­est, but today their mes­sage was that meat pro­duc­tion is a major cause of cli­mate change. While the UN is con­fer­ring in Rome on World Food Secu­ri­ty and Cli­mate change, the pigs put a focus on that aver­age Euro­peans have a diet of dis­as­ter. Rais­ing ani­mals for food gen­er­ates more green­house gas­es than all the cars and trucks in the world com­bined.

Quite some peo­ple in front of the Albert Hei­jn on Joden­breestraat were hap­py to taste the organ­ic, veg­an falafel and choco­late cake and many said they are veg­e­tar­i­ans already. Peo­ple were sur­prised to hear that pro­duc­ing one kilo of cheese cause as much green­house gas emis­sions as dri­ving a car for 60 km. A Brazil­ian woman had wit­nessed the expand­ing soy fields used for feed­ing ani­mal indus­try.

“Con­sumers can make a huge improve­ment by avoid­ing ani­mal prod­ucts and imports, and by sup­port­ing local, organ­ic farm­ers instead. But humans need to organ­ise them­selves fast against the dom­i­nant cul­ture if they want to save them­selves from cli­mate chaos” the pig­gies stat­ed after all the food had been hand­ed out.

Tonight, Wednes­day June 4 from 19 there will be a film night in Plan­tage Dok­laan 12, with organ­ic veg­an food and ideas on how to com­bat cli­mate change. (See pro­gramme on the web­site)

Web­site: http://www.howtocookaplanet.net

Ready Steady Skip: Trailer and website launched!

Ready Steady Skip — the game show where need­less­ly wast­ed food is recov­ered from the bin and turned into deli­cious dish­es before your very eyes!

Ready Steady Skip — the game show where need­less­ly wast­ed food is recov­ered from the bin and turned into deli­cious dish­es before your very eyes!

And now, the moment you’ve all been wait­ing for: http://www.readysteadyskip.org.uk/

Ready Steady Skip is a bit like “Scrapheap Chal­lenge” meets “Ready Steady Cook” — skip­ping for food and whip­ping up some tasty dish­es, with plen­ty of hilar­i­ty (and peo­ple div­ing into skips).

Every year over 17 mil­lion tons of food are put straight into land­fill sites, yet over 4 mil­lion tons of this is per­fect­ly edi­ble and still well with­in it’s sell-by date. A whop­ping 5 mil­lion tons of food are wast­ed annu­al­ly by con­sumers alone: that is, more than a quar­ter of all food we buy goes into the bin. It’s high time this insan­i­ty stopped!

Skip­ping (aka. “Free­gan­ism” or “Dump­ster Div­ing”) is all about reclaim­ing per­fect­ly edi­ble food “waste” from the jaws of an insane sys­tem found­ed on greed, and mak­ing good use of it.

We’ve launched the Ready Steady Skip trail­er and web­site to coin­cide with the Days Of Cli­mate Action food day (3rd June 2008), which is high­light­ing the fact that the food we eat con­tributes up to a third of the emis­sions that are poi­son­ing the plan­et. When you con­sid­er the amount of food that is just thrown away, it brings home how need­less this luna­cy is. Nobody ever need go hun­gry — yet peo­ple still starve every day.

The pro­gramme was shot here in Not­ting­ham at the begin­ning of March, and the full episode will be released online in July 2008. We’re also try­ing to organ­ise a screen­ing (and pos­si­bly even anoth­er con­test) at the Cli­mate Camp.

Keep an eye on our web­site for updates!

Pre­vi­ous Notts Indy­media piece: Ready, Steady, Skip!! — The Pic­tures 1

info@readysteadyskip.org.uk
http://www.readysteadyskip.org.uk/

03/06/08.…..TAKE ACTION ON FOOD AND CLIMATE CHANGE

With­in the past year, glob­al food prices have risen by 75%. Prices of wheat, soya, oilseeds, maize and rice are now at record lev­els. The World Bank has warned that 100 mil­lion more peo­ple are fac­ing hunger and mal­nu­tri­tion because of ris­ing food prices.

Food not Bombs for Food & Climate action dayWith­in the past year, glob­al food prices have risen by 75%. Prices of wheat, soya, oilseeds, maize and rice are now at record lev­els. The World Bank has warned that 100 mil­lion more peo­ple are fac­ing hunger and mal­nu­tri­tion because of ris­ing food prices.

The green­house gas emis­sions caused by live­stock and indus­tri­al fish­ing account for 18 per cent of glob­al warm­ing; more than the emis­sions from the world’s entire trans­port sys­tem, at 13.5 per cent. Tech­no fix­es such as GM crops and Bio­fu­els are not the answer to cli­mate chaos, we need to change our pat­terns of con­sump­tion and switch to a low impact, cru­el­ty free lifestyle!

With one week to go before the food and cli­mate change day of action; get cre­ative and get involved!

“Live­stock­’s con­tri­bu­tion to envi­ron­men­tal prob­lems is on a mas­sive scale. The impact is so sig­nif­i­cant that it needs to be addressed with urgency.”
— Unit­ed Nations Food and Agri­cul­ture Organ­i­sa­tion 2006

“The grain required to fill a 25-gal­lon SUV gas tank with ethanol will feed one per­son for a year.” (Lester Brown, Direc­tor of the Earth Pol­i­cy Insti­tute).

The UN Con­fer­ence on World Food Secu­ri­ty and Cli­mate Change runs from 3rd to 5th June 2008. The Net­work for Cli­mate Action is invit­ing you to take action on and around the 3rd of June 2008. There’s stuff hap­pen­ing all over the coun­try, and inter­na­tion­al­ly, on the day itself, and before and after it.

Cli­mate action starts on your din­ner plate, at the super­mar­ket, on your allot­ment and in your back yard, at the food pro­cess­ing and dis­tri­b­u­tion cen­tres, down on the farm, in your high street, at the air­port and at the lor­ry park. Use this day as a way to high­light the com­plex­i­ty of food relat­ed issues, and also to pro­mote spe­cif­ic cam­paigns..

It’s time to detox the plan­et and take action on food and cli­mate change! Groups all over the coun­try are plan­ning actions, demon­stra­tions, film nights, work­shops and free food events. For more ideas, and resources, vis­it the web­site: http://daysofclimateaction.org.uk; and let us know if you need any­thing else, or if you have resources that could be shared!

Remem­ber, the list below is only a list of pub­lic events, actions to fol­low when announced! If you want infor­ma­tion about whats going on in your area, please get in touch!

MANCHESTER 01/06 Veg­an pic­nic, demo and sur­prise activ­i­ty!
Free veg­an food
12–4, Pic­cadil­ly Gar­dens email: manchester@climatecamp.org.uk

BRISTOL 31/05–01/06 Bris­tol Veg­an Fayre
http://www.bristolveganfayre.co.uk/

SHEFFIELD 31/05 Free veg­an food stall
email:sheffieldanimalfriends@googlemail.com

LIVERPOOL 31/05 Free veg­an food event 12–4 Next to Nowhere, (this event kick starts the veg­an drop in which will hap­pen 1–5 every Sat­ur­day, Next to Nowhere). http://www.liverpoolsocialcentre.org/

LONDON
31/05 Protest against the pro­posed Com­bined Cycle Bio­fu­el Elec­tric­i­ty Gen­er­a­tion Plant. Stall on Myr­tle Road, East Ham from 10:30 to 6:30.
Ban­ner drop from 3:00 to 5:00pm out­side Newham Town Hall, East Ham. 04/06
Protest out­side the final con­sul­ta­tion meet­ing at Newham Town Hall 6:30 to 7:10pm , Bark­ing Road, East Ham.
http://www.biofuelwatch.org.uk/files/thames_gateway_biodiesel_project.pdf
As part of the nation­al day of action on food and cli­mate change called by the Net­work for Cli­mate Action, Food Not Bombs and Reclaim Your Food will be serv­ing *free veg­an food* at a *secret loca­tion* in South Lon­don!
* All the food will be skipped, reclaimed from the waste of an afflu­ent cap­i­tal­ist soci­ety.
* All the food will be veg­an, min­i­miz­ing the cli­mate-impact of the food. Meet on Tues­day the 3rd of June at Cam­ber­well Green (in the Green itself), 2PM sharp to move on to a *secret loca­tion*
Cam­ber­well Green — http://tinyurl.com/5h25yq
Lon­don Food Not Bombs — http://www.londonfnb.org

NOTTINGHAM 24/05–15/06 ‘Green­weeks’: allot­ment open days, organ­ic grow­ing cours­es and more!
http://www.greenweeks.org/

AMSTERDAM: Veg­an­ism and Cli­mate Change film night
http://www.aseed.net/

The food we eat con­tributes up to a third of the emis­sions that are poi­son­ing the plan­et. It’s time for a detox … Chang­ing our diet is one of the most effec­tive steps we can take!

Whether you’re work­ing on local organ­ic food, grow­ing your own, veg­an­ism, per­ma­cul­ture, food secu­ri­ty, human­i­tar­i­an issues, trans­port cam­paign­ing, agro­fu­els, anti — GM food … make the links on cli­mate change … take action on the 3rd of June toward a low-car­bon diet!

What­ev­er your tastes, there’s some­thing for every­one on this action menu! There are many pro­posed solu­tions — we think it’s time to start the debate. Get cre­ative and get involved!

Please let us know what you are plan­ning (if its appro­pri­ate!) or if not, tell us as soon as you’ve done it! Don’t for­get to send us your pho­tos too!

The media phone no for the day will be 07961917535; or you can email food@daysofclimateaction.org.uk.

This Day of Action on Cli­mate Change is called by the Net­work for Cli­mate Action in co-oper­a­tion with the Ris­ing Tide Net­work and the Camp for Cli­mate Action.

Activists arrested for robbery of a chicken from sun valley have case dropped

Two activists that where arrest­ed in con­nec­tion with the theft of a live chick­en from the Sun Val­ley Foods slaugh­ter­house in Here­ford were today told the police would be tak­ing no fur­ther action against them.

One of the activists was arrest­ed whilst leav­ing the site whilst the oth­er, who was acussed of actu­al­ly remov­ing the chick­en, vol­un­tar­i­ly attend­ed the police sta­tion at a mutu­al date.

Two activists that where arrest­ed in con­nec­tion with the theft of a live chick­en from the Sun Val­ley Foods slaugh­ter­house in Here­ford were today told the police would be tak­ing no fur­ther action against them.

One of the activists was arrest­ed whilst leav­ing the site whilst the oth­er, who was acussed of actu­al­ly remov­ing the chick­en, vol­un­tar­i­ly attend­ed the police sta­tion at a mutu­al date.

The Sun Val­ley site in Here­ford is one of the largest poul­try abat­toirs in the UK and the cost of the chick­en to them is under 50p how­ev­er this did not stop the com­pa­ny from kick­ing up a fuss but due to poor CCTV evi­dence and failed iden­ti­fi­ca­tion by wit­ness­es, West Mer­cia Con­stab­u­lary have decid­ed there is insuf­fi­cient effi­dence to pros­e­cute. Sun Val­ley are respon­si­ble for sup­ply­ing chick­en to McDon­alds and many oth­er major super­mar­ket chains; includ­ing the Co-Op Group who pride them­selves ona high eth­i­cal and ani­mal wel­fare poli­cies.

See also — http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2008/01/389024.html

West­ern Ani­mal Rights Net­work
e‑mail: info@animalliberation.co.uk
Home­page: http://www.animalliberaton.co.uk

Collection of Latest Radical Newsletters & Magazines available to download

All of the fol­low­ing are avail­able from here:

http://www.natterjackpress.co.uk/menu/downloads.php

All of the fol­low­ing are avail­able from here:

http://www.natterjackpress.co.uk/menu/downloads.php

Get down to your local rad­i­cal social cen­tre or book­shop for these newslet­ters — if they aren’t there then print them out / pho­to­copy and take down there. If your near­est social cen­tre isn’t that local, then you now know where you can get all the lat­est pub­li­ca­tions with­out hav­ing to trawl the net for them.

We are always look­ing for newsletters/ zines/ pamphlets/ magazines/ arti­cles to host on our down­load page (prefer­ably as ‘imposed’ ready to be print­ed PDF) email us if you are involved in a pub­li­ca­tion.

* SchNews Week­ly — from their web site

* Rough Music — Issue 18 — May/June 2008 — Local Brighton ‘trou­ble mak­ing, dirt dig­ging’ newslet­ter

* Work­ers Sol­i­dar­i­ty — Issue 103 — May/June 2008 — Irish Anar­chist News

* No Pasaran — Issue 1 — May 2008 — New Antifa UK Anti Fas­cist newslet­ter

* Infos­hop News — Issue 1 — May 2008 — New 40 page roundup of news from the Infos­hop anar­chist news site

* Earth First! Action Update — May 2008 — anoth­er great new issue — a quar­ter­ly roundup of eco­log­i­cal and oth­er direct action from Britain and beyond

* Mesho — April 2008 — spoof news­pa­per made for the inter­na­tion­al days of action for squats and autonomous spaces

* Cor­po­rate Watch — Issue 40 — April/May 2008 — Iraq Inc., Euro­pean Invest­ment Bank, Arab-British cham­ber of Com­merce, West Papua, Review of Klein’s ‘Shock Doc­trine’, Diary + More

* Gagged — Issue 23 — April/May 2008 — South Wales Anar­chist Newslet­ter

* Resis­tance — Issue 102 — April/May 2008 — month­ly newslet­ter of the Anar­chist Fed­er­a­tion UK

* No Bor­ders — Issue 3 — Feb­ru­ary / March 2008 — No Bor­ders UK net­work newslet­ter

* Rup­ture — Feb­ru­ary 2008 — a great zine for and about free par­ties, squats and social cen­tres

* 325 — Issue 5 — Feb­ru­ary 2008 — an insur­gent mag­a­zine of social war and anar­chy

* Class War — Issue 93 — Win­ter 2007 — “Save the Plan­et — Get Rid of the Rich” get­ting straight to the point as always

* Organ­ise! — Issue 69 — Wnter 2007 — mag­a­zine of the Anar­chist Fed­er­a­tion

* Fire to the Pris­ons — Issue 2 — Decem­ber 2007 — Excel­lent new newsletter/magazine 30 pages of insur­rec­tionary anti-pris­on/­dom­i­na­tion news and analy­sis and pris­on­er sup­port infor­ma­tion

* Cross­ing Bor­ders — Issue 4 — Novem­ber 2007 — a newslet­ter on move­ments and strug­gles of migra­tion (this issue focus­ing on the No Bor­ders camp in the Ukraine)

* Front­line — Issue 6 — June/August 2007 — Colom­bia Sol­i­dar­i­ty Cam­paign quar­ter­ly mag­a­zine

* Direct Action — Issue 39 — Sum­mer 2007 — mag of UK anar­cho-syn­da­cal­ist Sol­i­dar­i­ty Fed­er­a­tion

* War­rior Wind — Issue 3 — May 2007 — a newslet­ter in sup­port of polit­i­cal pris­on­ers

* Incen­dio — Issue 1 — Spring 2006 — a bilin­gual (english/spanish) mag­a­zine on Latin Amer­i­can strug­gles and sol­i­dar­i­ty

* Rolling Thun­der — Issue 1 — Sum­mer 2005 — ‘an anar­chist jour­nal of dan­ger­ous liv­ing’

mail@natterjackpress.co.uk
http://www.natterjackpress.co.uk

Battery farm raided by the ALF

May 07, 2008

“With the fire of vengeance in our souls, and the love angels in our hearts we cast the first stone against an inten­sive Som­er­set bat­tery farm, and car­ried 153 hens to free­dom.

Lib­er­a­tion’s cru­sade’s begun.
Ani­mal Lib­er­a­tion Front”

http://www.directaction.info/news_may07_08.htm

Liberated chickenMay 07, 2008

“With the fire of vengeance in our souls, and the love angels in our hearts we cast the first stone against an inten­sive Som­er­set bat­tery farm, and car­ried 153 hens to free­dom.

Lib­er­a­tion’s cru­sade’s begun.
Ani­mal Lib­er­a­tion Front”

http://www.directaction.info/news_may07_08.htm

Spirit of Freedom (May 2008)

Pro­duced by EARTH LIBERATION PRISONERS SUPPORT NETWORK

“The whole expe­ri­ence has been tough, but all the kind and strength­en­ing words and wise thoughts from strangers made it much eas­i­er!” (For­mer Swedish Ani­mal Rights Pris­on­er)

Prisoner Solidarity 11Pro­duced by EARTH LIBERATION PRISONERS SUPPORT NETWORK

“The whole expe­ri­ence has been tough, but all the kind and strength­en­ing words and wise thoughts from strangers made it much eas­i­er!” (For­mer Swedish Ani­mal Rights Pris­on­er)

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

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

But as well as these high pro­file activists, we ask you not to for­get all the oth­er pris­on­ers, some of whom are less well known. Regard­less of how long a pris­on­er serves, or how well known they are, its impor­tant we sup­port all the eco-pris­on­ers equal­ly. So please, no mat­ter where you are in the world, sup­port the eco-pris­on­ers and no com­pro­mise in defence of Moth­er Earth!

ECO-DEFENCE PRISONERS

Tre Arrow, SWIS #640393, Mult­nom­ah Coun­ty Deten­tion Cen­ter, 1120 S.W. 3rd Avenue, Port­land, Ore­gon 97206, USA. On remand accused of involve­ment with an arson on log­ging trucks and an arson on vehi­cles owned by a sand & grav­el com­pa­ny. (Tre is a raw ener­gy veg­an — He has asked that his let­ters of sup­port are writ­ten on scrap paper or tree-free paper).

Grant Barnes #137563, San Car­los Cor­rec­tion­al Facil­i­ty, PO Box 3, Pueblo, CO 81002, USA. Serv­ing 12 years for set­ting fire to a num­ber of SUV vehi­cles. The let­ters ELF were spray paint­ed onto all of the vehi­cles. (Grant is a veg­an).

Nathan Block, #36359–086, FCI Lom­poc, Fed­er­al Cor­rec­tion­al Insti­tu­tion, 3600 Guard Road, Lom­poc, CA 93436, USA. Serv­ing 7 years & 8 months for an ELF arson against a Poplar Tree Farm and an ELF arson against an SUV deal­er­ship. Also admit­ted his role in an ELF/ALF con­spir­a­cy. (Diet unknown).

Mar­co Camenisch, Post­fach 3143, CH-8105 Regens­dorf, Switzer­land. Serv­ing 18 years. 1) Ten years for using explo­sives to destroy elec­tric­i­ty pylons lead­ing from nuclear pow­er sta­tions. 2) Eight years for the mur­der of a Swiss Board­er Guard whilst on the run. In ’02 Mar­co com­plet­ed a 12-year sen­tence in Italy for destroy­ing elec­tric­i­ty pylons in Italy. (Mar­co is a meat eater who encour­ages organ­ic liv­ing).

Daniele Casali­ni, Casa Cir­con­dar­i­ale, Via Burla 59, 43100 Par­ma, Italy. Il Sil­vestre activist await­ing tri­al accused of using explo­sives to dam­age an elec­tric­i­ty pylon in protest at nuclear ener­gy. (Daniele is a veg­an).

Rod Coro­n­a­do — See details in Ani­mal Lib­er­a­tion Pris­on­ers List.

Francesco Gioia, C.C. Sol­lic­ciano, Via Giro­lamo Min­ervi­ni 2/R, 50142 Firen­ze Sol­lic­ciano (FI), Italy. Il Sil­vestre activist await­ing tri­al accused of using explo­sives to dam­age an elec­tric­i­ty pylon in protest at nuclear ener­gy. (Francesco is a veg­e­tar­i­an and Straight Edge).

Jef­frey Luers, # 13797671, CRCI, 9111 NE Sun­der­land Ave, Port­land, OR 97211–1708, USA. Serv­ing 10 years for arson on a SUV deal­er­ship & the attempt­ed arson of an oil truck. The orig­i­nal sen­tence was 22 years & 8 months, but was reduced on appeal. (Diet unknown).

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

Daniel McGowan #63794–053, Unit I, FCI Sand­stone, Fed­er­al Cor­rec­tion­al Insti­tu­tion, PO Box 1000, Sand­stone, MN 55072, USA. Serv­ing 7 years for an ELF arson against a Poplar Tree Farm and an ELF arson against an old growth log­ging cor­po­ra­tion. Also admit­ted his role in an ELF/ALF con­spir­a­cy. (Daniel is a veg­e­tar­i­an).

Jonathan Paul — See details in Ani­mal Lib­er­a­tion Pris­on­ers List.

Bri­ana Waters, 36432–086, FDC — Seat­ac, Fed­er­al Deten­tion Cen­ter, P.O. Box 13900, Seat­tle, WA 98198, USA. Await­ing sen­tenc­ing hav­ing been found guilty of involve­ment in an ELF arson on a Uni­ver­si­ty. (Diet unknown).

Joy­an­na Zach­er, #36360–086, FCI Dublin, 5700 8th St.- Camp Parks- Unit F, Dublin, CA 94568, USA. Serv­ing 7 years & 8 months for an ELF arson against a Poplar Tree Farm and an ELF arson against an SUV deal­er­ship. Also admit­ted her role in an ELF/ALF con­spir­a­cy. (Diet unknown).

ANIMAL LIBERATION PRISONERS
(All Ani­mal Lib­er­a­tion Pris­on­ers fol­low a min­i­mum veg­e­tar­i­an diet and most are veg­an).

Jon Able­white TB4885, HMP Lowd­ham Grange, Lowd­ham, Not­ting­ham, NG14 7DA, Eng­land. Serv­ing 12 years for attempt­ing to black­mail a farmer who sup­plied guinea pigs for vivi­sec­tion. (Jon is a veg­an).

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

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

Mel Broughton TN9138, HMP Wood­hill, Tat­ten­hoe Street, Mil­ton Keynes, Bucks MK4 4DA, Eng­land. On remand accused of involve­ment with an arson and black­mail cam­paign against an Oxford Uni­ver­si­ty vivi­sec­tion estab­lish­ment. (Mel is a veg­an).

Jacob Con­roy #93501–011, FCI Vic­torville Medi­um I Fed­er­al Cor­rec­tion­al Insti­tu­tion, P.O. Box 5300, Ade­lan­to, CA 92301, USA. Serv­ing 48 months impris­on­ment for help­ing organ­ise the SHAC-USA cam­paign. (Jake is a veg­an).

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

Don­ald Cur­rie A3660AA, HMP Parkhurst, New­port, Isle of Wight, PO30 5NX, Eng­land. Serv­ing an Inde­ter­mi­nate Sen­tence, of not less than six actu­al years, for car­ry­ing out arsons against tar­gets asso­ci­at­ed the vivi­sec­tion indus­try includ­ing HLS. (Don is a veg­an).

Lau­ren Gaz­zo­la #93497–011, FCI Dan­bury, Fed­er­al Cor­rec­tion­al Insti­tu­tion, Route #37Danbury, CT 06811, USA. Serv­ing 54 months impris­on­ment for help­ing organ­ise the SHAC-USA cam­paign. (Lau­ren is a veg­an).

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

Joshua Harp­er #29429–086, FCI Sheri­dan Fed­er­al Cor­rec­tion­al Insti­tu­tion, P.O. Box 5000, Sheri­dan, OR 97378 USA. Serv­ing 36 months impris­on­ment for help­ing organ­ise the SHAC-USA cam­paign. (Josh is a veg­an).

Kevin Kjon­aas #93502–011, FCI Sand­stone, PO Box 1000, Sand­stone, MN 55072 USA. Serv­ing 72 months impris­on­ment for help­ing organ­ise the SHAC-USA cam­paign. (Kevin is a veg­an).

Daniel McGowan — See details in Eco Defence Pris­on­ers List.

Heather Nichol­son VM4859, HMP Bronze­field, Woodthor­pe Road, Ash­ford, Mid­dx. TW15 3JZ, Eng­land. On remand accused of con­spir­a­cy to black­mail, in rela­tion to her involve­ment with the SHAC cam­paign. (Heather is a veg­an).

Jonathan Paul, #07167–085, FCI Phoenix, Fed­er­al Cor­rec­tion­al Insti­tu­tion, 37910 N 45th Ave., Phoenix, AZ 85086, USA. Sen­tenced to 51 months for an ALF arson on a horse meat plant. Also admit­ted his role in an ELF/ALF con­spir­a­cy. (Jonathan is a veg­an).

Andrew Stepan­ian #26399–050, FCI But­ner Medi­um II Fed­er­al Cor­rec­tion­al Insti­tu­tion, PO Box 1500, But­ner, NC 27509 USA. Serv­ing 36 months for help­ing organ­ise the SHAC-USA cam­paign. (Andrew is a veg­an).

Ker­ry Whit­burn TB4886, HMP Lowd­ham Grange, Lowd­ham, Not­ting­ham, NG14 7DA, Eng­land. Serv­ing 12 years for attempt­ing to black­mail a farmer who sup­plied guinea pigs for vivi­sec­tion. (Ker­ry is a veg­an).

PLOUGHSHARES PRISONERS

Helen Wood­son, 03231–045, FMC Car­swell — Admin. Max. Unit, POB 27137, Ft. Worth, TX 76127, USA. Serv­ing 8 years 10 months for actions that focused on the inter­re­la­tion­ship of war & the destruc­tion of the nat­ur­al world. The actions includ­ed pour­ing red paint over the secu­ri­ty desk of a fed­er­al court and mak­ing threat­en­ing com­mu­ni­ca­tions. Pre­vi­ous­ly Helen had served 20½ years for: 1) Using a ham­mer to dis­arm a nuclear mis­sile silo. 2) Burn­ing $25,000 on the floor of a bank whilst denounc­ing war, envi­ron­men­tal destruc­tion & eco­nom­ic injus­tice. 3) Mail­ing warn­ing let­ters with bul­lets attached to Gov­ern­ment & cor­po­rate offi­cials. (Diet unknown).

THE LECCE FIVE
The Lec­ce Five have been charged with “sub­ver­sive asso­ci­a­tion” accused of dam­ag­ing Esso petrol pumps to oppose the War on Iraq; sab­o­tag­ing the cash machines of a bank which funds an immi­gra­tion cen­tre; and tar­get­ing the multi­na­tion­al com­pa­ny Benet­ton in sup­port of Mapuche land rights activists in Chile. All of the defen­dants are cur­rent­ly either under house arrest or released on bail.

ANTIFA PRISONERS

Vah­tang Devitlidze, ul. Libbedo­va 42, UO 68/2, otryad 14, briga­da 142, g.
Hagyshen­sk, Krasnodarskiy Kray, 352680 Rus­sia. Serv­ing 2½ years for stab­bing a neo-nazi in the leg whilst defend­ing him­self from attack. (Diet unknown).

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

Fabio Milan, C.C. via Pianez­za 300, 10151 Tori­no, Italy. On remand accused of fight­ing with the police after an anti-fas­cist protest. (Diet unknown).

Andrea Neff, Bnr: 746/07/2, Jus­tizvol­lzugsanstalt fur Frauen in Berlin, Arkonas­trasse 56, 13189 Berlin, Ger­many. Serv­ing 14 months for anti-fas­cist activ­i­ty. (Diet unknown).

Chris­t­ian Süm­mer­mann, Bnr: 441/08/5, JVA Plötzensee, Lehrter­str. 61, 10557 Berlin, Ger­many. Serv­ing 40 months for breach­ing the peace whilst serv­ing a
sus­pend­ed sen­tence issued for anti-fas­cist activ­i­ties. (Diet unknown).

Tomasz Wiloszews­ki, Zak­lad Karny, Orze­chowa 5, 98–200 Sier­adz, Poland.
Serv­ing 15 years for acci­den­tal­ly killing a neo-nazi whilst defend­ing him­self. (Diet unknown).

OTHER PRISONERS

Olga Alek­san­drov­na Nevskaya, UU163/5, 7 Otryad, pos. Dzerzhin­skiy, Mozhaysk 140090 Moskovskaya oblast, Rus­sia. Eco-activist serv­ing 6 years for arson, crim­i­nal dam­age and caus­ing explo­sions in protest at the war in Chech­nya. Due for release in 2009. (Diet unknown).

Vagge­lis Botzatzis, Komo­ti­ni Juridi­cal Prison (“Dikastikes Fylakes Komo­ti­nis”), T.K. 69100, Greece. On remand accused of set­ting fire to two com­pa­ny cars owned by a energy/power com­pa­ny. It is believed that the per­son or per­sons unknown who car­ried out the arson did so in protest at the destruc­tion of the nat­ur­al envi­ron­ment and in sup­port of two work­ers who died at the pow­er plant. Vagge­lis is also accused of set­ting fire to a bank and start­ing a fire inside a car yard. (Meat Eater).

Michael W. Sykes, 100 East 2nd St, Mon­roe, Michi­gan 48161, USA. Youth held on remand accused of anti-sprawl arsons, crim­i­nal dam­age, spray-paint­ing an anar­chist sign and burn­ing the Amer­i­can flag. (Diet unknown)

Fran Thomp­son, #1090915 HU 1C, WERDCC, PO Box 300, Van­dalia, MO 63382, USA.
Serv­ing Life for killing, in self-defence, a stalk­er who had bro­ken into her home. Before her impris­on­ment Fran was an eco, ani­mal & anti-nuke cam­paign­er. (Fran is a veg­an).

MOVE
MOVE is an eco-rev­o­lu­tion­ary group who car­ried out protests in defence of all life. All move pris­on­ers describe them­selves as veg­e­tar­i­ans. There are cur­rent­ly eight MOVE activists in prison each serv­ing 100 years after been framed for the mur­der of a cop in 1979. 9th defen­dant, Mer­le Africa, died in prison in 1998.

Deb­bie Simms Africa (006307), Janet Hol­loway Africa (006308) and Janine Philips Africa (006309) all at: SCI Cam­bridge Springs, 451 Fuller­ton Ave, Cam­bridge Springs, PA 16403–1238, USA.

Michael Davis Africa (AM4973) and Charles Simms Africa (AM4975) both at SCI Grater­ford, PO Box 244, Grater­ford, PA 19426–0244, USA.

Edward Good­man Africa (AM4974), SCI Mahanoy, 301 Morea Rd, Frackville, PA 17932, USA.

William Philips Africa (AM4984) and Del­bert Orr Africa (AM4985) both at SCI Dal­las Draw­er K, Dal­las, PA 18612, USA.

Mumia Abu Jamal, (AM8335), SCI Greene, 175 Progress Dri­ve, Way­nes­burg PA 15370, USA. In 1981 Mumia, for­mer Black Pan­ther and vocal sup­port­er of MOVE, was framed for the mur­der of a cop. He was orig­i­nal­ly sen­tenced to death but is cur­rent­ly await­ing re-sen­tenc­ing fol­low­ing a court hear­ing in 2001.

STATEMENT ON VIOLENCE
Some peo­ple list­ed in this newslet­ter have car­ried out vio­lent actions. ‘Spir­it of Free­dom’ does not con­done vio­lence. But we are also against cen­sor­ship & believe peo­ple can decide for them­selves who they wish to sup­port.

ABOUT E.L.P. SUPPORT NETWORK
ELP is an inter­na­tion­al eco-pris­on­er sup­port net­work found­ed, in Britain, in 1993 to sup­port jailed eco-activists. We sup­port the pris­on­ers by pro­duc­ing var­i­ous reg­u­lar pris­on­er lists:

Spir­it of Free­dom is ELP’s inter­na­tion­al month­ly pris­on­er list­ing which is cir­cu­lat­ed by e‑mail.

Urgent ELP! Bul­letin is an e‑mail ser­vice that dis­trib­utes the names of any new eco-pris­on­er as soon as ELP gets their details. For more info e‑mail ELP4321@hotmail.com

On-Line Newslet­ters — ELP has a num­ber of web­sites that pro­vide news, pris­on­er lists and addi­tion­al info about ELP & the pris­on­ers.

Eng­lish lan­guage ELP Web­site
www.spiritoffreedom.org.uk

Greek lan­guage ELP Web­site
http://greekelp.blogspot.com

North Amer­i­can ELP Web­site
www.ecoprisoners.org

Turk­ish lan­guage ELP Web­site
www.geocities.com/yesilanarsi/elp.htm

ELP Extra is an e‑mail group that cir­cu­lates the details of polit­i­cal pris­on­ers, ELP learns about, who do not fall with­in the remit for sup­port by ELP. To sub­scribe to the list e‑mail ELP4321@Hotmail.com

Aus­tralian ELP.SN is our Aus­tralian con­tact. For more info e‑mail elp4321@hotmail.com

Bel­gium ELP.SN is our Bel­gium con­tact. For more info e‑mail elp_bel@hotmail.com

Ger­man ELP.SN is a pris­on­er led ini­tia­tive run by eco-pris­on­er Mar­co Camenisch. For more info con­tact Mar­co Camenisch, Post­fach 3143, CH-8105 Regens­dorf, Switzer­land.

Greek ELP.SN is our Greek con­tact. For more info e‑mail greekelp@yahoo.gr

North Amer­i­can ELP is our North Amer­i­can con­tact. For more infor­ma­tion e‑mail naelpsn@mutualaid.org

——-

Urgent ELP! Bul­letin (9th of May 2008)

Dear friends

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Phew, what a scorcher!