Councillor John Lines’ Homeless Village in Birmingham + update

5.11.2008
A protest camp named after Coun­cil­lor John Lines who’s respon­si­ble for the city’s hous­ing, was estab­lished last Thurs­day on derelict land owned by Birm­ing­ham City Coun­cil. Cllr. Lines has denied there is a home­less prob­lem in Birm­ing­ham and also denies there is mon­ey avail­able to build new ‘social hous­ing’. The occu­pied land has been unused for around sev­en years whilst there are over 30,000 peo­ple in the city wait­ing for hous­ing.

Birmingham homeless land squat 1Birmingham homeless land squat 25.11.2008
A protest camp named after Coun­cil­lor John Lines who’s respon­si­ble for the city’s hous­ing, was estab­lished last Thurs­day on derelict land owned by Birm­ing­ham City Coun­cil. Cllr. Lines has denied there is a home­less prob­lem in Birm­ing­ham and also denies there is mon­ey avail­able to build new ‘social hous­ing’. The occu­pied land has been unused for around sev­en years whilst there are over 30,000 peo­ple in the city wait­ing for hous­ing.

The protest is against the Coun­cil hold­ing on to land that could be sold at a ‘friend­ly’ price to Hous­ing asso­ci­a­tions there­by allow­ing Hous­ing Asso­ci­a­tions to draw up to £100m of grants to pro­vide ‘social hous­ing’. “At a cost of £50,000 per unit, the £100m could pro­vide around 2,000 homes” said one of the pro­test­ers. They claim the Council’s approach is spec­u­la­tive — by hold­ing onto unused land and build­ings with a view to sell­ing them off to the high­est com­mer­cial bid­der.

‘The John Lines’ Home­less Vil­lage’ con­sists of tents, a fire, cook­ing facil­i­ties and is locat­ed on the Per­shore Road in Bal­sall Heath. Orig­i­nal­ly the camp was intend­ed to last a week, but now pro­test­ers are try­ing to stay there as long as they can. Up until now the Coun­cil have made no plans to meet or talk with the pro­test­ers. They have been served with a notice to quit by Birm­ing­ham City Coun­cil and are due in court this Fri­day.

A group of around 30 peo­ple from dif­fer­ent parts of the city reg­u­lar­ly sleep over at the camp, some of whom are on wait­ing lists for social hous­ing and some home­less peo­ple have also joined the camp. The pro­test­ers have also attend­ed and dis­rupt­ed a coun­cil meet­ing yes­ter­day where accord­ing to the local press, they threat­ened to occu­py the roof of the home of Coun­cil­lor Lines, and Lines in return has ‘threat­ened to set his dogs on them’.

Pro­test­ers at the camp are keen on meet­ing vis­i­tors who want to express some sol­i­dar­i­ty. They are also in need of food, blan­kets and dona­tions.

——

Update:

The coun­cil was grant­ed the evic­tion order at Birm­ing­ham Coun­ty Court on Fri­day to evict the cam­paign­ers who are on land off Per­shore Road in Birm­ing­ham.

CLIMATE ACTION NEWS SHEET 84, OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2008

————————-
UPCOMING EVENTS AND ACTIONS:
————————-
1) RBS, E.ON and Shell uni­ver­si­ty recruit­ment tours, Oct/Nov 08
2) Cli­mate Camp Nation­al Gath­er­ing, Brad­ford, 8/9.11.08
3) Remem­ber­ing Ken Saro-Wiwa, 10.11.08
4) Shared Plan­et Con­fer­ence, Birm­ing­ham, 21–23.11.08
5) 48 hours of action against E.On and new coal, 28/29.11.08
6) Buy Noth­ing Day, 29.11.08

————————-
UPCOMING EVENTS AND ACTIONS:
————————-
1) RBS, E.ON and Shell uni­ver­si­ty recruit­ment tours, Oct/Nov 08
2) Cli­mate Camp Nation­al Gath­er­ing, Brad­ford, 8/9.11.08
3) Remem­ber­ing Ken Saro-Wiwa, 10.11.08
4) Shared Plan­et Con­fer­ence, Birm­ing­ham, 21–23.11.08
5) 48 hours of action against E.On and new coal, 28/29.11.08
6) Buy Noth­ing Day, 29.11.08
7) Nation­al Cli­mate March, 06.12.08
8) Earth First! Win­ter Moot, 6–8.02.09
9) Fos­sil Fools Day 2009, 01.04.09

—————-
RECENT HAPPENINGS:
—————-
1) Towards Copen­hagen 2009 – the first glob­al gath­er­ing, 13/14.09.08
2) Coal pow­er sta­tion block­ad­ed in Vir­ginia, USA, 15.09.08
3) Ross­port — Soli­taire leaves Irish waters with no pipeline laid! 20.09.08
4) Flash­mob against air­port expan­sion a suc­cess! 23.09.08
5) Cli­mate Camp polic­ing con­demned, 30.09.08 & 28.10.08
6) Boston (US) Ris­ing Tide pay Citibank a vis­it, 7/10/08
7) Day of Action Against Paci­fi­Corp dam, 10.10.08
8) Par­lia­ment rushed by cli­mate activists, 13.10.08
9) Oxford stu­dents just say no to BP jobs, 14.10.08
10) Art Not Oil vis­it the NT and hoax boss Hyt­ner, 15.10.08
11) Pro­test­ers dis­rupt Euro­pean bio­fu­els sum­mit, 16.10.08
12) Scot­tish cli­mate activists tar­get Scot­tish First Min­is­ter, 16.10.08
13) Green­wash Guer­ril­las EDF Action, 22.10.08
14) Man­ches­ter stu­dents flash­mob RBS and E.On recruit­ment stalls, 23.10.08
15) Bar­clays’ coal invest­ments tar­get­ed in Leam­ing­ton Spa, 25.10.08
16) Pro­tes­tors stop work at Ship­ley open-cast; Ship­ley Bodge court case
col­laps­es, 27.10.08
17) The Rain­bow War­rior goes to Kingsnorth, 29.10.08
18) Bris­tol Uni­ver­si­ty Death Fair
19) Con­vey­er belt lock-on stops Aus­tralian coal pow­er sta­tion, 1.11.08

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

1) RBS, E.ON and Shell uni­ver­si­ty recruit­ment tours, OCT/NOV 08
Cli­mate crim­i­nals are recruit­ing now, in a Uni­ver­si­ty near you. Find out when and where, as they have kind­ly post­ed their itin­er­aries online.
www.makeitrbs.com/events/

www.shell.com/home/content/gbr/aboutshell/careers/students_and_graduates/calendar_of_events/calendar_of_events_30052008.html

www.eon-uk.com/Careers/Graduates/807.aspx

Stuck for a direct action idea? Check out Ris­ing Tide’s “15 ways to top­ple
the Fos­sil Fuel Empire” on our web­site.

2) Cli­mate Camp Nation­al Gath­er­ing, Brad­ford, 8/9.11.08
The next Cli­mate Camp gath­er­ing will be in Brad­ford on the 8th and 9th Novem­ber. Come along and get involved.This month we will be in the fair city of Brad­ford, based up at the stu­dent union. Food will be pro­vid­ed by the deli­cious Tree­house Cafe and crash space will be near­by.

Large Group Facil­i­ta­tion Train­ing
Seeds for Change are run­ning a Large Group Facil­i­ta­tion Train­ing for Cli­mate Campers on Fri­day Novem­ber 7th in Leeds (just down the road from the gath­er­ing in Brad­ford), 11AM to 5.30 PM. Please email process at climatecamp.org.uk asap if you are inter­est­ed.

3) Remem­ber­ing Ken Saro-Wiwa, 10.11.08
Film screen­ing and fundrais­er at 7PM at LARC in Lon­don, 62 Fieldgate St, E1 1ES. On the 13th anniver­sary of the mur­der of Ken Saro-Wiwa and the rest of the Ogo­ni 9 by the Niger­ian state in 1995, with Shell in close cahoots, we will be remem­ber­ing what they fought for and what they died for. We’ll also be hear­ing about the inspi­ra­tional resis­tance of peo­ple around the world to Shel­l’s unfor­tu­nate­ly far from unique brand of destruc­tion, duplic­i­ty and over­all may­hem in the chase for ever-greater prof­its. There will be film screen­ings of ‘Those Who Dance’ and ‘Shad­ows and Light: Oil, Pow­er, and the Niger Delta’, inspi­ra­tional art on the walls and food and drink. Funds raised will go towards Art Not Oil’s new cam­paign against the Shell-spon­sored Oedi­pus pro­duc­tion cur­rent­ly run­ning at the Nation­al The­atre.

4) Shared Plan­et Con­fer­ence, Birm­ing­ham, 21–23.11.08
The Uni­ver­si­ty of Birm­ing­ham — Shared Plan­et is the UK’s largest stu­dent con­fer­ence on world pover­ty, human rights and the envi­ron­ment. It brings hun­dreds of stu­dents togeth­er for a week­end packed with big-name speak­ers, skills and issue based work­shops, debates, dis­cus­sions, film and a mas­sive par­ty! http://peopleandplanet.org/events/sharedplanet

5) 48 hours of action against E.On and new coal, 28/29.11.08

The UK Gov­ern­ment is call­ing for an 80% reduc­tion in car­bon emis­sions by 2050, we are call­ing for 48 hours of action against E.ON and new coal NOW. Join us in say­ing ‘No to New Coal’: get your friends togeth­er and plan an action for your area. Go stick­er­ing, blockad­ing, serv­ing direct action warn­ing notices at sup­ply chain premis­es, organ­ise an aware­ness rais­ing talk, hang a ban­ner, get cre­ative on the streets, the options are end­less. Get togeth­er, get cre­ative, and plan an action! For more infor­ma­tion vis­it — www.e‑onf-off.org — where a list of poten­tial tar­gets, action ideas and plen­ty of resources will fol­low short­ly.

6) Buy Noth­ing Day, 29.11.08
Sat­ur­day Novem­ber 29h 2008 is Buy Noth­ing Day. It’s a day where you chal­lenge your­self to switch off from shop­ping and tune into life. The rules are sim­ple, for 24 hours you will detox from con­sumerism and live with­out shop­ping. Any­one can take part pro­vid­ed they spend a day with­out spend­ing – bet­ter yet, get togeth­er with some friends and chal­lenge con­sumer cul­ture direct­ly!
www.buynothingday.co.uk

7) Nation­al Cli­mate March, 06.12.08
March on Par­lia­ment to demand that the gov­ern­ment acts on cli­mate now! The march this year goes to Par­lia­ment Square to demand that the gov­ern­ment act now on cli­mate. The march will start at Speak­ers Cor­ner, Hyde Park — assem­ble 12 noon. The march will be pre­ceed­ed by a cli­mate protest bike ride start­ing from Lin­col­n’s Inn Fields at 10.30 am: see more here. There will be an After-Par­ty in the Syn­er­gy Cen­tre from 5.00 pm till late.!
www.campaigncc.org/index.shtml

8) 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 this 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

9) Fos­sil Fools Day 2009, 01.04.09
Just in case you missed the news last month – Fos­sil Fools Day is back! Whether you’ve been look­ing for a chance to dip a toe into the grow­ing cli­mate action move­ment, or have had your kick-ass action planned since last year, now is the time to do it – what­ev­er it is. 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 get spread­ing the word. Info and resources will be post­ed on the web­site soon, and look out for leaflets to dis­trib­ute in Decem­ber.
www.risingtide.org.uk/fossilfoolsday2009

—————-
RECENT HAPPENINGS:
—————-

1) Towards Copen­hagen 2009 – the first glob­al gath­er­ing, 13/14.09.08
The first social move­ments’ meet­ing was from 13–14 Sep­tem­ber 2008, in a free school in Nor­rberg, host­ed by the Dan­ish move­ment Cli­maX (klimax2009.org). There were about 100 peo­ple present from 21 coun­tries around the world, and mobil­isa­ta­tions towards Decem­ber 2009 were well and tru­ly launched. For the call to action, trans­la­tions, and a per­son­al per­spec­tive on the meet­ing, see http://risingtide.org.uk/copenhagen. To get involved, send an email to cli­mate09-int-sub­scribe at list.riseup.net.

2) Coal pow­er sta­tion block­ad­ed in Vir­ginia, USA, 15.09.08
At 6:00am on Sep­tem­ber 15 around 40 peo­ple block­ad­ed the con­struc­tion site of Domin­ion Vir­gini­a’s Wise Coun­ty coal-fired pow­er sta­tion. Eleven pro­test­ers were arrest­ed after four hours. Pro­test­ers locked their bod­ies to eight large steel drums, two of which had oper­a­tional solar pan­els illu­mi­nat­ing a ban­ner that read “renew­able jobs to renew Appalachia.” In addi­tion, pro­test­ers held a 10’x30’ ban­ner, which said: “we demand a clean ener­gy future.”

3) Ross­port — Soli­taire leaves Irish waters with no pipeline laid! 20.09.08
On Fri­day the 20th Sep­tem­ber, the pipe lay­ing ship, the Soli­taire, final­ly left Irish waters. Dur­ing the ship’s time in Ire­land, Shell failed to lay any part of the off­shore pipe line. The depar­ture of the Soli­taire is a mas­sive vic­to­ry for the Shell to Sea cam­paign. Resis­tance in the past six weeks has tak­en many dif­fer­ent forms: fish­er­men pre­vent­ing the ship’s access to the bay by refus­ing to move from her path, site inva­sions by local peo­ple and the Ross­port Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp, numer­ous water­borne actions to pre­vent work by sup­port­ers from oth­er parts of Ire­land and fur­ther afield, nation­al and inter­na­tion­al sol­i­dar­i­ty actions and final­ly, an 11 day hunger strike by local cam­paign­er Mau­ra Har­ring­ton, that con­tin­ued until the ship left Irish waters. The events of the last 6 weeks have inspired not only those involved, but also many who wit­nessed them from afar, new links and friend­ships have been forged and many lessons learned. In the after­math, the Shell to Sea cam­paign can clear­ly be seen to have been revi­tal­ized, both local­ly and nation­al­ly. It is unclear when the ship will attempt to return to Broad­haven Bay. It is pos­si­ble it could still be this year if repairs are quick and a suit­able weath­er win­dow appears, or it may not be until next spring. How­ev­er, while it may be uncer­tain exact­ly when the ship will return, what is cer­tain, is that it will meet even greater oppo­si­tion upon its next arrival. Come and be part of it! The Ross­port com­mu­ni­ty is call­ing on peo­ple every­where to put pres­sure on Shell, Allseas (the com­pa­ny that owns the Soli­taire) and Irish embassies to demand that the Soli­taire leaves Irish waters imme­di­ate­ly.

4) Flash­mob against air­port expan­sion a suc­cess! 23.09.08
Over 100 cam­paign­ers staged a colour­ful flash­mob against air­port expan­sion at mid­day today out­side Man­ches­ter Town Hall. The group includ­ed Lon­don cam­paign­ers opposed to the expan­sion of Heathrow. The flash­mob was timed to coin­cide with the Labour Par­ty Con­fer­ence. At 12.45 pre­cise­ly the cam­paign­ers stripped off to reveal red t‑shirts with the words ‘Stop Air­port Expan­sion’ embla­zoned across them. They then lay down to form the words ‘TAKE TRAINS’ with their bod­ies. The protest marked the pub­lic launch of the recent­ly formed ‘Stop Expan­sion at Man­ches­ter Air­port’.

5) Cli­mate Camp polic­ing con­demned, 30.09.08 & 28.10.08
A spokesman for Med­way Trades Union Coun­cil said “We have decid­ed to hold an inquiry into the Polic­ing of the Cli­mate Camp because of our con­cern over the lev­el of polic­ing and var­i­ous inci­dents such as a police­man in riot gear assault­ing a pro­test­er with a riot shield, as shown on TV, and oth­er alle­ga­tions includ­ing local cam­paign­ers being sub­ject­ed to pep­per spray and a local coun­cil­lor being pushed to the ground”

Also, in the House of Com­mons, MPs accused police of unnec­es­sary aggres­sion towards cli­mate campers. Home Office min­is­ters were told that offi­cers “pro­voked vio­lence against peace­ful pro­test­ers” and even arrest­ed some­one for “aggres­sive­ly pick­ing up lit­ter”.
www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2008/09/409732.htm

6)Boston (US) Ris­ing Tide pay Citibank a vis­it, 7/10/08
Four activists chained them­selves to the front entrance of the Citibank branch in Har­vard Square, Cam­bridge. The action start­ed as a protest in front of the Bank of Amer­i­ca branch a block away before march­ing down the street to Citibank, where the four activists had already chained them­selves to the front door, clos­ing the bank for a peri­od of time. Over 150 peo­ple attend­ed the protest, while many more onlook­ers gath­ered in Har­vard Square. The action, using the tag-line “Not With Our Mon­ey”, was intend­ed to raise aware­ness of the con­nec­tions between the cur­rent finan­cial cri­sis and the impend­ing cli­mate cri­sis. Both Bank of Amer­i­ca and Citi Bank are respon­si­ble for fund­ing dirty coal pow­er that harms the envi­ron­ment, and engag­ing in preda­to­ry lend­ing prac­tices that are fuelling the fore­clo­sure cri­sis and have left fam­i­lies in Boston home­less. Sev­er­al groups were involved with the protest includ­ing Ris­ing Tide Boston and Rain­for­est Action Net­work, both envi­ron­men­tal jus­tice groups, and City Life/Vida Urbana, a ten­ants’ rights orga­ni­za­tion.

7) Day of Action Against Paci­fi­Corp dam, 10.10.08
A coali­tion of Kla­math Riv­er Indi­an tribes, fish­er­men, con­ser­va­tion­ists and local sup­port­ers (includ­ing Cas­ca­dia Ris­ing Tide) ramped up their cam­paign to remove four fish-killing dams on the riv­er today when they held a spir­it­ed protest in front of PacifiCorp’s head­quar­ters in Port­land. The “Day of Action Against Paci­fi­Corp” start­ed off at 8:30 a.m. on Sep­tem­ber 18th when local activists hung a ban­ner pro­claim­ing “War­ren Buf­fett Kills Salmon, Jobs and Com­mu­ni­ties” over Inter­state-84 in sol­i­dar­i­ty with the Tribes. Around 200 peo­ple con­verged in front of Paci­fi­Corp for a press con­fer­ence. After the con­fer­ence, 70 peo­ple occu­pied the area in front of the head­quar­ters, effec­tive­ly shut­ting down the front entrance to Paci­fi­Corp as com­pa­ny staff locked the doors.

8) Par­lia­ment rushed by cli­mate activists, 13.10.08
Demand­ing deeds not words from the gov­ern­ment, 500 Cli­mate Rush­ers gath­ered in Par­lia­ment Square to cel­e­brate 100 years to the day since the Suf­fragettes rushed par­lia­ment demand­ing votes for women. After shar­ing tea and cake on the lawn of Par­lia­ment Square, men and women dressed in Edwar­dian garb became a lit­tle less civilised, and the doors of to Par­lia­ment were locked as cli­mate activists rushed the main entrance. Although no one got in, the sounds of pro­test­ers strik­ing the doors were clear­ly audi­ble from the inside.
www.climaterush.co.uk

9) Oxford stu­dents just say no to BP jobs, 14.10.08
Activists infil­trat­ed an attempt by BP to woo Oxford grad­u­ates at a top-notch hotel on Octo­ber 14th. One inter­rupt­ed the cheesy BP PR man’s pre­sen­ta­tion as he claimed that he ‘loved the coun­try­side’ — while putting the gloss on oil and gas explo­ration, extrac­tion and financ­ing — to ask, why then, has BP spent more on its green sun­flower rebrand­ing than on its annu­al renew­able ener­gy bud­get? Activists then gave their own pre­sen­ta­tion of BP’s activ­i­ties around the world, why major oil com­pa­nies are counter-pro­duc­tive to cli­mate change solu­tions, and why any tempt­ed grad­u­ates should recon­sid­er their career options. A mem­ber of Colom­bia Sol­i­dar­i­ty Cam­paign gave a first hand account of BP’s com­plic­i­ty in envi­ron­men­tal destruc­tion, sub­vert­ing peace­ful social move­ments and fund­ing death squads. A moment of stunned silence was fol­lowed by applause as the re-edu­cat­ed audi­ence aban­doned the shindig.

10)Art Not Oil vis­it the NT and hoax boss Hyt­ner, 15.10.08
After a vis­it to the the­atre (Dar­ling!), arty cli­mate activists cooked up a let­ter claim­ing to be from NT boss Nicholas Hyt­ner ques­tion­ing the use of oil spon­sor­ship in the arts. The NT were none too pleased about this and the ensu­ing row reached the let­ters pages of luvvie-week­ly “The Stage”(a first for the direct action move­ment?). Art not Oil ask: “We’re ask­ing peo­ple if they’re up for mak­ing an art­work of some kind as a response This could be an image, song, film or poem to appear on our web­site, or to be print­ed on a post­card or some­thing sim­i­lar. We’re open to ideas. (Unfor­tu­nate­ly, we aren’t able to pay for your work, but we have no wish to pos­sess it!) If this is of inter­est, we’d love to see it as soon as pos­si­ble, as ‘Oedi­pus’ runs until Jan­u­ary 2009 only.”
www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2008/10/411200.html and
http://www.thestage.co.uk/features/feature.php/22157/chit-chat-hytner-miss-or-maybe-an-attack-

11) Pro­test­ers dis­rupt Euro­pean bio­fu­els sum­mit, 16.10.08
On World Food Day, 16th Octo­ber, activists from Action Against Agro­fu­els dis­rupt­ed the Bio­fu­els Expo in Newark, one of the largest bio­fu­el indus­try con­fer­ences in Europe. Four ban­ners were dropped, as pro­test­ers climbed on the roof out­side the main entrance and on a ledge inside the main exhi­bi­tion hall, where they remained for over three hours. Rape alarms were set off across the exhi­bi­tion cen­tre. Ban­ners read “Agro­fu­els for cars and pow­er plants wors­en cli­mate change”, “Land-grab­bing for agro­fu­els caus­es hunger”, “Agro­fu­els — a cli­mate crime” and “Green­wash­ing hunger and defor­esta­tion”. Sep­a­rate­ly, Leeds Uni­ver­si­ty stu­dents held a ban­ner and leaflet­ting protest out­side the con­fer­ence.

12) Scot­tish cli­mate activists tar­get Scot­tish First Min­is­ter, 16.10.08
At 4am, res­i­dents from Clyde­bank, Pais­ley, Kirk­lis­ton and Cra­mond peace­ful­ly set up a stereo and blast­ed aero­plane noise through the entrance of the First Min­is­ter’s pri­vate res­i­den­cy in Edin­burgh. The action stands as a protest ‘dawn cho­rus’ to high­light the expe­ri­ence of liv­ing life in the shad­ow of a grow­ing air­port. Iron­i­cal­ly, the stereo caused 110 deci­bels of noise — the equiv­a­lent of a jum­bo jet tak­ing off. For half an hour about ten res­i­dents sur­round­ed the build­ing dressed in bright paja­mas, night caps, clutch­ing ted­dy­bears, with ear defend­ers to dis­play the dan­ger­ous lev­els of noise pol­lu­tion endured by their fam­i­lies and com­mu­ni­ties. Their plac­ards stat­ed “It’s time to wake up to the impacts of avi­a­tion” and “have a taste of your own med­i­cine”. The res­i­dents took these steps to state loud and clear to the First Min­is­ter, who holds ulti­mate say over the fate of the expan­sion plans, that he can­not ignore any of the effects of air­port expan­sion. These impacts include dan­ger­ous noise lev­els, ris­ing air pol­lu­tion, cli­mate change and increas­ing eco­nom­ic uncer­tain­ty dur­ing the cur­rent cred­it crunch.

13) Green­wash Guer­ril­las EDF Action, 22.10.08
Lon­don Ris­ing Tide’s Green­wash Gueril­las Brigade, Detec­tion Pla­toon #1, moved into action on Mon­day morn­ing, 22 Octo­ber, at 08:00 hours – tar­get­ing ener­gy cor­po­ra­tion Élec­tric­ité de France (EDF) at the cen­tral Lon­don head­quar­ters of their UK sub­sidiary EDF Ener­gy. EDF has recent­ly bought out British Ener­gy and have announced that they plan to build 4 new nuclear pow­er sta­tions in the UK in the com­ing years. Inspired by our coun­ter­parts in France demon­strat­ing against new nuclear pow­er, we chose to tar­get EDF’s attempts to mus­cle in their FALSE nuclear solu­tion to the loom­ing dis­as­ter of cat­a­stroph­ic cli­mate chaos. Our action (con­sist­ing of 12 Green­wash Gueril­las) high­light­ed the dan­gers of nuclear pow­er to the bios­phere, human­i­ty, and REAL renew­able ener­gy solu­tions.

14) Man­ches­ter stu­dents flash­mob RBS and E.On Recruit­ment Stalls, 23.10.08
A busy careers fair at Man­ches­ter’s GMex was inter­rupt­ed yes­ter­day by sev­er­al long whis­tle blasts. 30 or so pro­tes­tors sud­den­ly revealed their yel­low ‘Leave it in the Ground’ t‑shirts and sur­round­ed the Roy­al Bank of Scot­land stall, hold­ing ban­ners and chant­i­ng ‘leave it in the ground!’. A pro­tes­tor then read some extracts from the excel­lent report “Cash­ing in on Coal”, which shows that RBS is a cli­mate crim­i­nal, pour­ing mon­ey into new fos­sil fuel extrac­tion projects. The secu­ri­ty guards even­tu­al­ly began drag­ging pro­tes­tors out so they did­n’t get a chance to vis­it the E.ON stall. How­ev­er the protest con­tin­ued out­side where peo­ple hand­ed out leaflets explain­ing how E.ON (with a fat loan from RBS) plans to build the first new coal pow­er sta­tion in the UK in 30 years, while secu­ri­ty guards repeat­ed­ly threat­ened to have them arrest­ed for tres­pass­ing.

15) Bar­clays’ coal invest­ments tar­get­ed in Leam­ing­ton Spa, 25.10.08
Leam­ing­ton Ris­ing Tide took aim at a town cen­tre Bar­clays on Sat­ur­day 25 Octo­ber 2008 in protest at the bank’s heavy invest­ment in dirty coal. Ban­ners, leaflets and bal­loons let peo­ple know that ‘Bar­clays are fuelling glob­al warm­ing’. One of the ban­ners used an image of scales to demol­ish the myth that Bar­clays cares about cli­mate change: they invest a whop­ping 3,300 mil­lion invest­ed in coal against 15 mil­lion in renew­able tech on the oth­er. Over the last two years, Bar­clays has been involved in 17 sep­a­rate loans to the coal indus­try, and togeth­er with RBS and HSBC, has loaned $70 bil­lion to E.ON alone.

16) Pro­tes­tors stop work at Ship­ley open-cast; Ship­ley Bodge court case col­laps­es, 27.10.08
Pro­tes­tors from Earth First! stopped work at an open-cast coal site for over two hours – they ran onto the site and clam­bered on dig­gers & dumpers and held out ban­ners stop­ping the work safe­ly. Some of the dig­ger dri­vers were very friend­ly and were glad to have a break as they work very long shifts, from 7am‑6:30 with only lunch & half hour breaks at 10 & 3. Today work had not been able to start till 10 as nature was fight­ing its own cor­ner, with rain drown­ing the site, and it was stopped again at 1 for 3 hours due to the protest.

Mean­while, the first court case aris­ing from the evic­tion of Bodge House, Ship­ley, where pro­test­ers occu­pied the site of the pro­posed open cast coal mine from June until August, col­lapsed today after the pros­e­cu­tion admit­ted that it did­n’t have the evi­dence to sup­port its case. The crown pros­e­cu­tor asked for an adjourn­ment, the defence object­ed, the dis­trict
judge agreed with the defence and dis­missed the case. Let’s hope the oth­ers go the same way.

17) The Rain­bow War­rior goes to Kingsnorth, 29.10.08
The Green­peace flag­ship Rain­bow War­rior led a peace­ful arma­da of boats down the Med­way to Kingsnorth, and thir­ty cam­paign­ers, each car­ry­ing flags from 30 nations, dis­em­barked onto Kingsnorth’s jet­ty. E.on’s pro­posed new plant would emit as much car­bon diox­ide as the world’s 30 least pol­lut­ing coun­tries com­bined (hence the flags), dash­ing our chances of beat­ing cli­mate change and spelling dis­as­ter for mil­lions of fam­i­lies around the world. Mean­while, anoth­er group of vol­un­teers — includ­ing two of the Kingsnorth Six (recent­ly cleared of crim­i­nal dam­age to Kingsnorth’s smoke­stack using the defence of cli­mate change) – occu­pied a small, con­crete, E.ON-owned island just next to the jet­ty until they were forced to leave by a high court injunc­tion.
http://www.greenpeace.org.uk/blog/climate/vigil-ends-20081030

18) Bris­tohl Uni Death Fair, 29.10.08
This time it was the 4 horse­man of the apoc­a­lypse (well, 2 of them) who high­light­ed the real­i­ty behind the shiny facades of com­pa­nies like E.On and BAE Sys­tems.
http://westsideclimateaction.wordpress.com

19) Con­vey­er belt lock-on stops Aus­tralian coal pow­er sta­tion, 1.11.08
29 peo­ple from Ris­ing Tide Aus­tralia have been arrest­ed after a cli­mate change protest at Bayswa­ter pow­er sta­tion today. Four peo­ple attached them­selves to machin­ery, stop­ping the con­vey­or belts that car­ry coal to Bayswater’s fur­naces for six hours while 25 oth­ers occu­pied the coal piles.
http://www.risingtide.org.au/node/802

—————-
Com­piled and sent out by Ris­ing Tide UK.

To receive this News Sheet month­ly, send an email to news-sub­scribe at risingtide.org.uk with the sub­ject line ‘sub­scribe’ (with­out the quotes and replace at with @).

Dongria Kohnd mass protest — Middlesbrough and Wolverhampton Councils Revealed as Vedanta Investors

Tribe dances in mass protest against British min­ing com­pa­ny
21 Octo­ber 2008

Hun­dreds of mem­bers of the Don­gria Kondh tribe danced and sang through the cap­i­tal of the Indi­an state of Oris­sa on Mon­day, armed with tra­di­tion­al weapons, to mark their oppo­si­tion to British com­pa­ny Vedanta’s plans to mine their sacred moun­tain.

Tribe dances in mass protest against British min­ing com­pa­ny
21 Octo­ber 2008

Hun­dreds of mem­bers of the Don­gria Kondh tribe danced and sang through the cap­i­tal of the Indi­an state of Oris­sa on Mon­day, armed with tra­di­tion­al weapons, to mark their oppo­si­tion to British com­pa­ny Vedanta’s plans to mine their sacred moun­tain.

A huge pro­ces­sion of the tribe and their sup­port­ers snaked through the Oris­san cap­i­tal, Bhubaneswar.

The FTSE 100 British com­pa­ny Vedan­ta, major­i­ty owned by Lon­don-based bil­lion­aire Anil Agar­w­al, has received the go-ahead from India’s Supreme Court to mine alu­mini­um ore on the Dongria’s land. The mine would destroy the forests and streams the Don­gria depend on, and would turn their sacred moun­tain into an indus­tri­al waste­land.

Don­gria man Jitu Jake­si­ka said at the demon­stra­tion, ‘We will car­ry on our strug­gle to save Niyam­giri at any cost.’

Survival’s direc­tor Stephen Cor­ry said today, ‘If fur­ther proof were need­ed that the Don­gria Kondh are deter­mined to stop Vedan­ta, this would be it. The Don­gria know that the mine would destroy them. Vedan­ta must heed their voic­es and pull out of this project.’

Last week Sur­vival sub­mit­ted a report to the Unit­ed Nations Spe­cial Rap­por­teur on Indige­nous Issues, say­ing, ‘Min­ing will dev­as­tate what the Don­gria Kondh hold sacred and the nat­ur­al resources from which they draw their spe­cif­ic iden­ti­ty as a peo­ple.’

Many British banks and pen­sion funds invest in Vedan­ta, includ­ing the Uni­ver­si­ties pen­sion fund (USS), F&C, Stan­dard Life, Bar­clays Bank, Abbey Nation­al and HSBC, as well as Mid­dles­brough and Wolver­hamp­ton Coun­cils. Sur­vival is cam­paign­ing for investors to pull out of Vedan­ta.

For more infor­ma­tion please con­tact Miri­am Ross at Sur­vival Inter­na­tion­al (+44) (0)20 7687 8734 or (+44) (0)7504 543 367 or email mr@survival-international.org

UK free-spaces news — Rampart & Worcester possible evictions

New social cen­tre under threat of ille­gal & pos­si­bly vio­lent evic­tion tomor­row
21.10.2008
This is to inform every­one as well as a call-out for sup­port — new­ly occu­pied com­mu­ni­ty and arts cen­tre in Worces­ter threat­ened with ille­gal and pos­si­bly vio­lent evic­tion tomor­row.

New social cen­tre under threat of ille­gal & pos­si­bly vio­lent evic­tion tomor­row
21.10.2008
This is to inform every­one as well as a call-out for sup­port — new­ly occu­pied com­mu­ni­ty and arts cen­tre in Worces­ter threat­ened with ille­gal and pos­si­bly vio­lent evic­tion tomor­row.

This is a call-out for sup­port — if you can get here before mid­night tonight and want to stay here, and eat with us and have a mer­ry night then please do. After mid­night, the last door will be ful­ly bar­ri­cad­ed. Any­one wish­ing to show sup­port for this ille­gal evic­tion after this point please turn up at 13–17 Car­den Street (off City Walls Road), Worces­ter WR1 around 11.30 tomor­row (WEDNESDAY), bring ban­ners, cam­eras and cam­era-phones and pro­vide pos­i­tive pub­lic rela­tions, because if they are forc­ing their way into our home IT IS ILLEGAL and we will not be scared by this bull­shit.

So what hap­pened…?
At about 15:30 today a bailiff arrived at the door with a let­ter on behalf of Keather Prop­er­ties Ltd. THE LETTER IS TRANSCRIBED AT THE BOTTOM FOR ANYONE WHO WANTS TO READ THE BOLLOCKS NOTICE

We’ve been on the phone to the Advi­so­ry Ser­vice for Squat­ters, and they have con­firmed that this is a total­ly ille­gal evic­tion. They have dealt with mat­ters like this on a day to day basis for 30 years and under­stand the law a lot bet­ter than most com­mer­cial lawyers. They assure us any attempt to evict tomor­row will be crim­i­nal and we should defend our­selves with num­bers and phys­i­cal bar­ri­cades. The ‘exer­cis­ing their rights’ part applies to land, and not build­ings. And see­ing as a tent can apply as a build­ing, an 8000 square ft com­mer­cial build­ing cer­tain­ly counts!

This would be a dif­fer­ent sto­ry if we only lived here.. but for two sol­id weeks we have been putting all our love and ener­gy into this place. We have had dreams become real­i­ty in cre­at­ing a space where any­one is wel­come and can come and cre­ate any­thing, any­time they want.

Com­mu­nal cook­ing, cir­cuit bend­ing and sewing work­shops, music prac­tice, paint­ing, and much much more was on the agen­da — our gallery cov­ered with work from many dif­fer­ent local artists, and now we have been dis­cov­ered we are being pre­sent­ed with ille­gal and vio­lent threats.

This whole thing is new to us.. but the bar­ri­cades are being strength­ened and peo­ple are get­ting ready for a poten­tial­ly long day of defend­ing the Wet Paint build­ing.

This is a call-out for sup­port — if you can get here before mid­night tonight and want to stay here, and eat with us and have a mer­ry night then please do. After mid­night, the last door will be ful­ly bar­ri­cad­ed. Any­one wish­ing to show sup­port for this ille­gal evic­tion after this point please turn up at 13–17 Car­den Street (off City Walls Road), Worces­ter WR1 around 11.30 tomor­row (WEDNESDAY), bring ban­ners, cam­eras and cam­era-phones and pro­vide pos­i­tive pub­lic rela­tions because if they are forc­ing their way into our home IT IS A CRIMINAL OFFENCE and we will not be scared by this bull­shit.

call us on 07965710354

Your friends at WET PAINT 🙂

.….….….blah blah blah

TAKE NOTICE

KEATHER PROPERTIES LTD (LANDOWNER) are the own­ers of the land on which you are tres­pass­ing and require you to leave. You are here with­out con­sent and are there­fore tres­pass­ing and have no right to remain. You should there­fore leave togeth­er with all your vehi­cles and goods by 1200 hours on the 22 day of Octo­ber 2008.

If you fail to do so, KEATHER PROPERTIES LTD (LANDOWNER) will exer­cise its rights to self-help to remove you from the land and have instruct­ed Bailiffs from Swift Cred­it Ser­vices Lim­it­ed to do so on its behalf. This right, under Com­mon Law, is set out on Hals­burys law of Eng­land. The police will attend if nec­es­sary to ensure that there is no breach of the peace.

Should this enforce­ment action by nec­es­sary , you will be held respon­si­ble for all costs of your removal and trans­porta­tion and KEATHER PROPERTIES LTD (LANDOWNER) may take pro­ceed­ings against you for the recov­ery of these costs.

KEATHER PROPERTIES LTD (LANDOWNER) will be enti­tled to take such action because you failed to respond to a request to leave the land on which you are cur­rent­ly tres­pass­ing.

DATED THIS 21 DAY OF OCTOBER 2008
SIGNED
LANDOWNER KEATHER PROPERTIES LTD
ADDRESS C/O ROBERT DAVIES PARTNERSHIP LTD.

wetpaint@riseup.net

SAVE the Ram­pART

21 Octo­ber 2008
Ram­pART Lon­don’s longest last­ing lib­er­at­ed space is fac­ing evic­tion.

yes­ter­day a mem­ber of the Ram­pART col­lec­tive talked to a guy out­side Ram­pART, who intro­duced him­self as Stu­art who was also present at court on the 20th of Decem­ber. he said that the coun­cil build­ing con­trol depart­ment had been has­sling them and he’d nar­row­ly avoid­ed them slap­ping a court order on them last week in rela­tion to dan­ger­ous parts of the build­ing such as slates hang­ing off etc.

they have been try­ing to get us evict­ed since March and got there­fore a war­rant from the high court, which means they are using the high court bailiffs, the police say they need 80 offi­cers and demand­ed £25,000 for the costs. so the own­er took the police to court and the police backed down. the hold up is still the police who have not giv­en a date yet…

so.…

basi­cal­ly the Ram­pART could be evict­ed any time and it’s just the police being the ones that has held it up. we will not get notice of the date of the
evic­tion and we will find it dif­fi­cult to hold off 80 cops and bailiffs on a sur­prise 5am evic­tion. we do need to pro-active­ly find anoth­er build­ing as a back­up. we won’t give in with­out resist­ing the evic­tion to make a state­ment against gen­tri­fi­ca­tion and the evic­tion of free spaces in east Lon­don.

we invite you to come and get cre­ative in its defence. this Thurs­day we are launch­ing an ongo­ing time of action.

we’ll start build­ing and cook­ing @ 3 pm, then Dan­ish activists will share expe­ri­ences from the youth house @ 6 pm, din­ner around 7.30 and build­ing and direct action skill-shar­ing after that. we need tools for mak­ing the bar­ri­cades effi­cient and beau­ti­ful, so if you have access to tools or mate­ri­als please bring them along.

when we fight for Ram­part we are not just fight­ing to defend the space. we are part of a world wide strug­gle against the cap­i­tal­ist world order.

we are fight­ing for every­one’s rights to learn and edu­cate, share, live and love with­out author­i­ties.

we are fight­ing for our dreams.

now is the time to show Lon­don and the rest of the world that the strug­gle con­tin­ues…

rampart@mutualaid.org
http://www.rampart.co.nr

The latest EF! Action Update is out, bringing you reports of eco-resistance for the darkening days…

Bring­ing light & inspi­ra­tion to the dark­er evenings are the action sto­ries in the lat­est Earth First! Action Update.

Block­ades of nuclear pow­er, roads & rivers around the world were joined “with this Shell-blockad­ing D‑lock I thee wed”.

Adjustable spanner photoBring­ing light & inspi­ra­tion to the dark­er evenings are the action sto­ries in the lat­est Earth First! Action Update.

Block­ades of nuclear pow­er, roads & rivers around the world were joined “with this Shell-blockad­ing D‑lock I thee wed”.

And if anti-fas­cist action, quar­ry sab­o­tage, squats, tree plat­forms, wrekin’ open­casts, scal­ing lux­u­ry hotels & the lat­est protest camp news was­n’t enough for you, chuck in some glue, arm tubes, a pool of oil, stink bombs, air­borne rape alarms and a Lego-sized occu­pa­tion, then there’s full reports from this sum­mer’s antics at the Camp for Cli­mate Action, Ross­port sol­i­dar­i­ty camp, EF! sum­mer gath­er­ing and Sav­ing Ice­land camp, plus a crop of glob­al cli­mate camps & news of protest & resis­tance from all 5 con­ti­nents.

“No nukes, no coal, no kid­ding” — with peo­ple dying (both lit­er­al­ly & sym­bol­i­cal­ly) from the activ­i­ties of the Earth-destroy­ers, peo­ple have been shout­ing to just “Leave it in the Ground”, drag­on boats have clashed with navy gun­boats in Ire­land, an oil war was declared in Nige­ria, and ‘moles’ spent a week under­ground dig­ging fur­ther and fur­ther away from the forces of dark­ness at an open-cast coal site.

Details of the new Coal Action Net­work, upcom­ing dates & a full con­tact list should help launch (or boost) you into the orbit of eco-resis­tance.

Sub­scribe and get it sent direct to a let­ter­box near you — you’d also be sup­port­ing the EF!AU to get print­ed and sent out to pris­on­ers & protest camps. If you want some to dis­trib­ute, con­tact us at: actionup­date (AT) earthfirst.org.uk

Down­load the lat­est issue or past issues here.

The EF!AU is there to inspire peo­ple to take eco­log­i­cal direct action, to pro­vide info to help you just get out and do it. Don’t feel shy, put your best foot for­ward.

The EF!AU is the quar­ter­ly newslet­ter of peo­ple tak­ing eco­log­i­cal direct action — send us news of your action or cam­paigns, and come along to the Win­ter Moot if you want to get involved in any of the cam­paigns you’ve read about.

What is Earth First!?

World Anti Mcdonalds Day

McCru­el­ty: “We’re not lov’in it” – Cam­bridge

McDonalds World Food Day protest CambridgeMcCru­el­ty: “We’re not lov’in it” – Cam­bridge

Two cam­paign­ers held a belat­ed mini protest for World Day Against McDon­alds today 18th Oct 08 in Cam­bridge city cen­tre. The ‘What’s Wrong With McDon­alds’ leaflets were dis­trib­uted. (For a copy see http://www.mcspotlight.org/campaigns/current/resources/index.html ) Passers by showed an inter­est and took leaflets. Some peo­ple took pic­tures.

Back in June one of the activists was arrest­ed on a walk in protest at the same McDon­alds and is await­ing tri­al in Decem­ber. The activist is charged under Sec­tion 5 of the Pub­lic Order Act. See http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/regions/cambridge/2008/06/401637.html
A pre-tri­al hear­ing was held in July where a tri­al was set for Sep­tem­ber. How­ev­er it was lat­er post­poned until Decem­ber after a wit­ness was appar­ent­ly ill.

—–

World anti mcdon­alds day began for us in Coventry.Around 9 of us gave out hun­dreds of anti mcdon­alds leaflets and yum­my veg­an burgers.Most of the pub­lic we’re supportive,especially as there was free food,and showed gen­uine interest.One guy who start­ed with “I hate veg­ans & love big juicy cheese­burg­ers” left with one of our burg­ers and a smile on his face.

We had the Mcdon­alds manager,who pro­claimed to be veggie,come out with:“What about vegetables,u kill veg­eta­bles!”. Despite us telling him that veg­eta­bles have nei­ther ner­vous system,brain or a heart beat…he disagreed(saying they did! haha).

It was real­ly pos­i­tive day,with no police hassle,and plen­ty of warmth from the pub­lic

No Borders Network Gathering 8 & 9 November — update

No Bor­ders Net­work Gath­er­ing
8 & 9 Novem­ber 2008
New­cas­tle upon Tyne

No Bor­ders is a net­work of grass-roots organ­i­sa­tions that sup­port free­dom of move­ment and the abol­ish­ment of bor­ders. The No Bor­ders Gath­er­ing will bring togeth­er groups and indi­vid­u­als from across the UK to dis­cuss, net­work and plan togeth­er.

No Bor­ders Net­work Gath­er­ing
8 & 9 Novem­ber 2008
New­cas­tle upon Tyne

No Bor­ders is a net­work of grass-roots organ­i­sa­tions that sup­port free­dom of move­ment and the abol­ish­ment of bor­ders. The No Bor­ders Gath­er­ing will bring togeth­er groups and indi­vid­u­als from across the UK to dis­cuss, net­work and plan togeth­er.

Work­shops and dis­cus­sions sug­gest­ed include No Bor­ders and workplace/community sol­i­dar­i­ty, anti-depor­ta­tion cam­paigns and wider strug­gles, ID cards plus loads more.

You can con­tact us at whydontyou@post.com or on 07523900260 (text/voicemail) if you’d like more info, would like to sug­gest items for dis­cus­sion at the Gath­er­ing or would like to get involved.

Accom­mo­da­tion will be avail­able, and direc­tions to the venue will be pro­vid­ed near­er the time. Sug­gest­ed dona­tion, to cov­er the costs of the Gath­er­ing, is £10 but no one will be turned away through lack of funds. No Bor­ders t shirts will be avail­able, along with var­i­ous dvds and oth­er infor­ma­tion.

If you are plan­ning to come, please con­tact us to let us know if you would like accom­mo­da­tion, when you will be arriv­ing, and any require­ments, thanks!

No Bor­ders is a net­work of groups strug­gling for the free­dom of move­ment for all and an end to all migra­tion con­trols. We call for a rad­i­cal move­ment against the sys­tem of con­trol, divid­ing us into cit­i­zens and non-cit­i­zens. We demand the end of the bor­der regime for every­one, includ­ing our­selves, to enable us to live anoth­er way, with­out fear, racism and nation­al­ism.
www.noborders.org.uk

Spirit of Freedom (October 2008) — support the eco-prisoners

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)

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)

Wel­come to the Octo­ber 2008 edi­tion of Spir­it of Free­dom. The last month has been a month of mixed emo­tions for ELP. On the one hand we heard the bril­liant news that the Dutch ani­mal rights activist, Ger­ben Jan, was found not guilty of assault­ing a police offi­cer, caus­ing the offi­cer to break his leg, dur­ing an ani­mal rights demo in Swe­den. Instead Ger­ban was found guilty of resist­ing arrest for which he was fined and deport­ed. Also in an unex­pect­ed move, all the Aus­tri­an Ani­mal Rights pris­on­ers were released from prison pend­ing their tri­al! Plus, the Amer­i­can veg­an, Nathan Kno­erl, was grant­ed bail in his case where he is accused of involve­ment in an anti-vivi­sec­tion protest. Fol­low­ing Nathans release a sup­port cam­paign has been set up to try and help raise mon­ey for Nathan’s forth­com­ing legal case. For more info please e‑mail supportnathan@gmail.com. How­ev­er, just as ELP start­ed to think our pris­on­er lists might start to go down, we received news of fur­ther police raids in Aus­tria. ELP also learnt that, due to Frank Ambrose, grass­ing every­one up, the Amer­i­can’s Marie Mason, Stephanie Lynne Fultz, and Aren Burth­wick, have all had to enter Plea Bar­gains and admit some of the charges set against them. In Marie’s case she has admit­ted her direct role in an ELF arson on a Uni­ver­si­ty build­ing involved with GM crop tests, whilst Stephanie and Aren have admit­ted not report­ing a fire (Stephanie has admit­ted cut­ting Marie’s hair which was burnt fol­low­ing the arson). We don’t know what sen­tences Stephanie and Aren are like­ly to receive, but Marie is look­ing at 15 to 20 years and has been remand­ed into cus­tody. This is real­ly bad news, espe­cial­ly as it was hoped Marie might remain free until her sen­tenc­ing ear­ly next year. Around the world, peo­ple are being impris­oned for stand­ing up for what they believe in and try­ing to
help the ani­mals and the earth. 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, #70936–065, (in tran­sit), USA. Serv­ing 78 months for his involve­ment in two ELF arsons. 1) an arson on log­ging trucks 2) 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 Bor­der 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).

Rod­ney Coro­n­a­do #03895–000, FCI El Reno, PO Box 1500, El Reno, OK 73036, USA. Serv­ing one-year impris­on­ment after he informed peo­ple how to make an incen­di­ary device dur­ing a speech at an ani­mal rights gath­er­ing. (Meat eater).

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).

Pao­la Gori, Via delle Mac­chie 9, 57124 Livorno, Italy. Il Sil­vestre activist await­ing tri­al accused of allow­ing her house to be used to plan ille­gal activ­i­ty. (Pao­la is a veg­an).

Bryan Lefey #38664–086, FDC SeaT­ac, Fed­er­al Deten­tion Cen­ter, P.O. Box 13900, Seat­tle, WA 98198, USA. On remand accused of an ELF action that saw the dam­ag­ing of GM trees and the dam­ag­ing of US Forestry Ser­vice vehi­cles. (Diet unknown).

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).

Marie Jeanette Mason, Neway­go Coun­ty Jail, PO Box 845, White Cloud, MI 49349, USA. Await­ing sen­tenc­ing hav­ing plead­ed guilty to involve­ment in ELF arson against a Uni­ver­si­ty build­ing car­ry­ing out Genet­i­cal­ly Mod­i­fied crop tests. Marie also plead­ed guilty to con­spir­ing to car­ry out ELF actions and also admit­ted involve­ment in 12 oth­er ELF actions. Marie is expect­ed to receive a sen­tence of between 15–20 years. (Marie is a veg­an).

Eric McDavid, 16209–097. FCI Vic­torville Medi­um II, PO BOX 5700, Ade­lan­to, CA 92301, USA. Serv­ing 19 years & 7 months for plan­ning to destroy the prop­er­ty of the U.S. Forestry Ser­vice, mobile phone masts and pow­er plants. At the point of his arrest no crim­i­nal dam­age has actu­al­ly occurred. (Eric is a veg­an).

Daniel McGowan, #63794–053, USP Mar­i­on, US Pen­i­ten­tiary, PO Box 1000, Mar­i­on, IL 62959, 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, FCI Dan­bury, Fed­er­al Cor­rec­tion­al Insti­tu­tion, Route 37, Dan­bury, CT 06811, USA. Serv­ing six years for 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).

Dan Amos VN7818, HMP Win­ches­ter, Rom­sey Road, Win­ches­ter SO22 5DF, Eng­land.
On remand hav­ing plead­ed guilty to con­spir­a­cy to black­mail Hunt­ing­don Life Sci­ences. (Dan is a veg­an)

Gregg Avery TA7450, HMP Win­ches­ter, Rom­sey Road, Win­ches­ter, SO22 5DF, Eng­land. On remand hav­ing plead­ed guilty to con­spir­a­cy to black­mail Hunt­ing­don Life Sci­ences. (Gregg is a veg­an).

Natasha Avery NR8987, HMP Bronze­field, Woodthor­pe Road, Ash­ford, Mid­dx. TW15 3JZ, Eng­land. On remand hav­ing plead­ed guilty to con­spir­a­cy to black­mail Hunt­ing­don Life Sci­ences. (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).

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).

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).

Sean Kirt­ley WC 6977, HMP Stafford, 54 Gaol Road, Stafford, ST16 3AW, Eng­land. Serv­ing four and a half years for run­ning an anti-vivi­sec­tion cam­paign web­site. (Sean 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).

John Smith, TB4887, HMP Lind­holme, Bawtry Road, Hat­field Wood­house, Don­cast­er, DN7 6EE, Eng­land. Serv­ing 12 years for attempt­ing to black­mail a farmer who sup­plied guinea pigs for vivi­sec­tion. (John is a veg­an).

Andrew Stepan­ian #26399–050, USP Mar­i­on, P.O. Box 1000 Mar­i­on, IL 62959, 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).

Sarah White­head, VM7684, HMP Bronze­field, Woodthor­pe Road, Ash­ford, Mid­dx, TW15 3JZ, Eng­land. Serv­ing two years for: 1) res­cu­ing a pup­py from hor­rif­ic con­di­tions. 2) res­cu­ing over 100 ani­mals from a pet breed­er who was lat­er pros­e­cut­ed for ani­mal abuse. Also await­ing tri­al for SHAC activ­i­ty. (Sarah 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 DEFENDANTS
The Lec­ce Defen­dants 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).

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. (Tomasz is a veg­e­tar­i­an).

Yuri Yure­vich Milevskiy, SIZO #7 kam­era 38, g. Brest, ul. Kar­la Mark­sa 86, 224000 Belarus. On remand for fight­ing with neo-nazis. (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).

Richard Sills (Address Unknown, USA). Serv­ing 15 months for bomb hoax­ing a Uni­ver­si­ty say­ing they would be tar­get­ed by the ALF if they didn’t stop their ani­mal exper­i­ments. (Diet unknown).

Michael W. Sykes, 696693, 3855 Coop­er St, Jack­son, MI 49201, 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

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

Earth Lib­er­a­tion Pris­on­ers Sup­port Net­work
elp4321@hotmail.com
http://spiritoffreedom.org.uk

Halloween land squat, Birmingham — housing crisis

POSSIBLE DEVELOPMENT OF GREEN FIELD SITES FOR HOUSING

The issue of a lack of good qual­i­ty, well main­tained homes for social rent has long been an issue in Birm­ing­ham

Poor qual­i­ty and bad­ly main­tained rent­ed homes cause a vari­ety of prob­lems for their occu­pants includ­ing poor health.

POSSIBLE DEVELOPMENT OF GREEN FIELD SITES FOR HOUSING

The issue of a lack of good qual­i­ty, well main­tained homes for social rent has long been an issue in Birm­ing­ham

Poor qual­i­ty and bad­ly main­tained rent­ed homes cause a vari­ety of prob­lems for their occu­pants includ­ing poor health.

Dur­ing cold­er months the issue of insu­la­tion is a major prob­lem with those on low wages or ben­e­fits not being able to heat their home prop­er­ly. AND IT IS YET ANOTHER SOURCE OF CLIMATE CHANGE caused by a lack of insu­la­tion

On Sep­tem­ber 1st 2008 JUSTICE NOT CRISIS action group scaled the Town Hall in Birm­ing­ham to protest at the coun­cil’s social hous­ing pol­i­cy.

On Thurs­day 30th Octo­ber JUSTICE NOT CRISIS are squat­ting a piece of vacant coun­cil hous­ing land and set­ting up the JOHN LINES HOMELESS VILLAGE. We intend to cel­e­brate Hal­loween on the Fri­day and stay for as long as pos­si­ble.

For full up to date info please vis­it the web site at www.justicenotcrisis.wordpress.com
email us at justice.not.crisis@googlemail.com

We are cam­paign­ing for:

1. That the coun­cil release some of their hous­ing land to hous­ing asso­ci­a­tions so that they can use £100m worth of gov­ern­ment grants to build 2,000 new homes for social rent.
2. We oppose the build­ing of 1,000s of new homes on green field sites in and around Birm­ing­ham as part of the coun­cils aspi­ra­tion to build up to 60,000 new homes.
3. We want to see the coun­cil improve their homes to a much bet­ter stan­dard than the laugh­able “decent homes stan­dard”.

UK No Borders Gathering 8–9 November

Just over a month till the next net­work-wide No Bor­ders Gath­er­ing, to be held in New­cas­tle on 8 & 9 Novem­ber.

The Gath­er­ing will be a chance to dis­cuss, net­work and plan, and to build on the dis­cus­sions held at the last net­work-wide Gath­er­ing ear­li­er this year.

Just over a month till the next net­work-wide No Bor­ders Gath­er­ing, to be held in New­cas­tle on 8 & 9 Novem­ber.

The Gath­er­ing will be a chance to dis­cuss, net­work and plan, and to build on the dis­cus­sions held at the last net­work-wide Gath­er­ing ear­li­er this year.

The Gath­er­ing is a col­lec­tive­ly organ­ised event with shared respon­si­bil­i­ty for con­tent and organ­i­sa­tion, being co-ordi­nat­ed this time by peo­ple in New­cas­tle. It will take place on Sat­ur­day 8th and Sun­day 9th Novem­ber, start­ing 9am for break­fast for a 10am start each day, end­ing at 6pm on the Sat­ur­day and 2pm on the Sun­day. Venue details and direc­tions will be post­ed near­er the time. Accom­mo­da­tion will be avail­able on request.

You can con­tact us at whydontyou@post.com if you’d like more info, would like to sug­gest items for dis­cus­sion at the Gath­er­ing or would like to get involved.

No Bor­ders is a net­work of groups strug­gling for the free­dom of move­ment for all and an end to all migra­tion con­trols. We call for a rad­i­cal move­ment against the sys­tem of con­trol, divid­ing us into cit­i­zens and non-cit­i­zens.
We demand the end of the bor­der regime for every­one, includ­ing our­selves, to enable us to live anoth­er way, with­out fear, racism and nation­al­ism.
Vis­it the web­site www.noborders.org.uk

new­cas­tle plan­ning group
whydontyou@post.com