Category: West Midlands

West Mid­lands

West Midlands Climate Activists Weekend (9th/10th June: training, party…)

Activists organ­is­ing for this year’s Camp for Cli­mate Action in the West Mid­lands are putting on a two-day event of dis­cus­sion, work­shops and par­ty­ing this week­end in Birm­ing­ham this week­end — Sat 9th June and Sun­day 10th June.

Activists organ­is­ing for this year’s Camp for Cli­mate Action in the West Mid­lands are putting on a two-day event of dis­cus­sion, work­shops and par­ty­ing this week­end in Birm­ing­ham this week­end — Sat 9th June and Sun­day 10th June.

The event has come out of dis­cus­sions with­in the West Mid­lands Cli­mate Camp process, which high­light­ed a need for train­ing in non-vio­lent direct action. Since those ini­tial dis­cus­sions the event has expand­ed into a two-day explo­ration of NVDA, prac­ti­cal low-tech ener­gy, con­sen­sus, cli­mate change and the Cli­mate Camp process. This will be the first in a series of sim­i­lar events lead­ing up to the Camp, and beyond.

On Sat­ur­day 9th June at 10am par­tic­i­pants will be meet­ing at the cafe at the Mid­lands Arts Cen­tre, Edg­bas­ton (see- http://www.macarts.co.uk/?page=visiting/locationMap.html. Bus­es 45 or 47 from the City Cen­tre); from there they will go the main venue. We will have a cli­mate camp sign in the cafe so peo­ple know where to con­verge. Sat­ur­day’s main focus will be NVDA train­ing, with guest train­ers from Seeds For Change along for the ride. Seeds For Change pro­vide train­ing and sup­port to grass­roots campaigners,NGOs, Co-ops and oth­er com­mu­ni­ty groups and organ­i­sa­tions in the social sec­tor.
Vis­it http://www.seedsforchange.org.uk/

Sun­day will be devot­ed to all the oth­er work­shops we want to do, and it is hoped that some of the events will take place in the park if the weath­er is dry.

The timetable pro­vi­sion­al­ly agreed so far is as fol­lows:

Sat­ur­day 9th June
10am Meet at the MAC, fol­lowed by brunch ice­break­er.
11am Open­ing ses­sion: par­tic­i­pants will dis­cuss togeth­er their needs and wants from the weekend.Includes intro to Cli­mate Camp.
11.30 NVDA intro­du­tion.
1:30pm Lunch
2pm NVDA train­ing.
5pm Reclaim Pow­er — a film about Cli­mate Camp 2006, fol­lowed by dis­cus­sion.
7.30pm Par­ty.

Sun­day 10th June
10am Brunch
11am Work­shops all day, inc. rock­et stove mak­ing (learn to make a stove out of an old oil drum), con­sen­sus deci­sion mak­ing, cli­mate sci­ence, debunk­ing myths and counter argu­ments, grey water sys­tems, 12 volt elec­tric­i­ty, vis­it to the allot­ment

There is no fee but dona­tions of any kind will be wel­comed. Please bring food to share if you can. Feel free to come by at any point or for the whole week­end!
Please note that times may change, as the event devel­ops.
This is a non-heirar­chi­cal­ly organ­ised event: par­tic­i­pants will get out what they put in. You can offer work­shops at the event or before­hand.

For more infor­ma­tion as to times and venue, to offer a work­shop, or for any oth­er com­mu­ni­ca­tion, please call or text 07904 529362.
You can also email west-mids[at]climatecamp.org.uk

The West Mid­lands Cli­mate Camp Neigh­bour­hood organ­is­ing group meet every
Wednes­day 7.30 at the Spot­ted Dog pub in Alces­ter Street, Dig­beth. Come
and get involved!

Man arrested in protest over Rotherwas road, Herefordshire

24 May 2007 — a man has been arrest­ed after chain­ing him­self to a dig­ger in protest at the build­ing of a £12.5m road.

Rotherwas lock-on protest24 May 2007 — a man has been arrest­ed after chain­ing him­self to a dig­ger in protest at the build­ing of a £12.5m road.

Mar­tin Wyness was held for aggra­vat­ed tres­pass over his demon­stra­tion at Rother­was Access Road in Here­ford­shire.

He was joined by around 20 pro­tes­tors opposed to project which will link the A49 road from Here­ford to Ross-on-Wye, to an indus­tri­al estate at Rother­was.

Here­ford­shire Coun­cil is build­ing it despite being refused fund­ing by the gov­ern­ment on three occa­sions.

Offi­cials said they believed the scheme was not good val­ue for mon­ey.

Fund­ing is being pro­vid­ed by a com­bi­na­tion of mon­ey from Advan­tage West Mid­lands and hous­ing devel­op­ers.

A coun­cil spokesman said it was need­ed to attract more busi­ness­es to the area, but pro­tes­tors say it is an excuse to build new homes around the near­by vil­lages of Bulling­hope, Low­er Bulling­ham and Dine­dor.

A pub­lic inquiry was held in 2006 which looked at the coun­cil acquir­ing the land need­ed for the road, and con­struc­tion work start­ed last month.

Back­ground info & oth­er cam­paign news at http://www.rotherwasribbon.com/

Activist Mediation Network — open for business

The Activist Medi­a­tion Net­work is now up and run­ning. If you know of any activist group or activist indi­vid­ual who has a con­flict which is affect­ing their abil­i­ty to change our world for the bet­ter, then get in touch and we may be able to help sort it out.

The Activist Medi­a­tion Net­work is now up and run­ning. If you know of any activist group or activist indi­vid­ual who has a con­flict which is affect­ing their abil­i­ty to change our world for the bet­ter, then get in touch and we may be able to help sort it out.

activistmediation@aktivix.org
www.activistmediation.org.uk

We are con­tin­u­ing to run train­ing days for peo­ple want­i­ng to learn con­flict res­o­lu­tion and medi­a­tion skills.

Upcom­ing dates
Mon­day June 18th in Nor­wich. Day 1 — How we deal with con­flict, Con­flict res­o­lu­tion tools, Basic medi­a­tion prac­tice. Lim­it­ed places avail­able.
Book asap by email­ing us.

We are prob­a­bly going to do a 2 day course at the Earth First gath­er­ing in Nor­folk, 18–22nd July. This is espe­cial­ly for those going to Cli­mate Camp. It will go like this:

Fri­day July 20th — Day 1 — How we deal with con­flict, Con­flict res­o­lu­tion tools, Basic medi­a­tion prac­tice.

Sat­ur­day July 21st — Day 2 — Prac­tis­ing medi­a­tion skills. Only avail­able to peo­ple who have com­plet­ed a Day 1 with us.

These days will only run if there is enough demand. There will be lim­ites places and we may decide peo­ple need to com­mit in advance. Get in touch if you are inter­est­ed.

Apolo­gies that all these dates are in Nor­folk. If you think there is a demand for a train­ing day in your area, do get in touch.

Climate Camp To Target Heathrow (& new videos: Another End of the World is Possible)

Last sum­mer, over 600 peo­ple con­verged out­side Drax coal-fired pow­er sta­tion for 10 days of sus­tain­able liv­ing and col­lec­tive edu­ca­tion, cul­mi­nat­ing in a day of mass action against Drax. This year, the Camp for Cli­mate Action will pitch its tents near Heathrow air­port.

climate camp '07 sand posterLast sum­mer, over 600 peo­ple con­verged out­side Drax coal-fired pow­er sta­tion for 10 days of sus­tain­able liv­ing and col­lec­tive edu­ca­tion, cul­mi­nat­ing in a day of mass action against Drax. This year, the Camp for Cli­mate Action will pitch its tents near Heathrow air­port.

There will be a day of mass direct action aim­ing to dis­rupt the activ­i­ties of the air­port and the avi­a­tion indus­try, but in the inter­ests of pub­lic safe­ty there will be no attempt to block­ade run­ways.

Although the loca­tion is dif­fer­ent, the phi­los­o­phy of the camp remains the same: to be a place for the bur­geon­ing net­work of peo­ple tak­ing rad­i­cal action on cli­mate change around the coun­try to come togeth­er for a week of low-impact liv­ing, edu­ca­tion, debate, net­work­ing, strate­gis­ing, cel­e­bra­tion, and direct action. The camp will fea­ture over 100 work­shops cov­er­ing top­ics such as cli­mate change impacts, car­bon off­set­ting, bio­fu­els, peak oil, per­ma­cul­ture, prac­ti­cal renew­ables, cam­paign strat­e­gy, skills for direct action, and much more. Run with­out lead­ers by every­one who comes along, it will be a work­ing eco­log­i­cal vil­lage using renew­able ener­gy, com­post­ing waste and sourc­ing food local­ly.

Avi­a­tion is the fastest grow­ing source of green­house gas emis­sions in the UK, and all our efforts to tack­le cli­mate change in oth­er sec­tors are undone by the mas­sive growth in air trav­el. Hold­ing the camp at Heathrow aims to high­light the luna­cy of the gov­ern­men­t’s air­port expan­sion plans, tar­get indus­try giants prof­i­teer­ing from the cli­mate cri­sis, and raise aware­ness of the need to fly less. The camp will also sup­port local res­i­dents in their long-term strug­gle against the build­ing of a third run­way and the destruc­tion of their com­mu­ni­ties.

It all comes down to us, now. We are the last gen­er­a­tion that can do any­thing about cli­mate change. In 20 or 30 years time, should we not change our ways, we’ll be com­mit­ted to emis­sions increas­es that will see forests burn, soils decay, oceans rise, and mil­lions of peo­ple die. If we don’t get this issue right, so much else is lost too.

We still have time, but not for long. Make it count.

Camp for Cli­mate Action, 14th — 21st August 2007.
http://www.climatecamp.org.uk


To cel­e­brate the announce­ment of the loca­tion for this sum­mer’s CAMP
FOR CLIMATE ACTION — Heathrow Air­port, we present:

ANOTHER END OF THE WORLD IS POSSIBLE
7 Video por­traits of rad­i­cal cli­mate activists

“Apoc­a­lypse is always eas­i­er to imag­ine than the strange and cir­cuitous routes to what actu­al­ly comes next.”
Rebec­ca Sol­nit, Hope in the Dark: The Untold His­to­ry of Peo­ple Pow­er, Can­non­gate 2005.

Anoth­er End of the World is Pos­si­ble is a series of cap­ti­vat­ing video por­traits of peo­ple tak­ing rad­i­cal action against the root caus­es of cli­mate change. Rang­ing from an activist who occu­pied an airport’s
taxi way, to a teacher work­ing with kids on a deprived hous­ing estate, the por­traits demon­strate the won­der­ful diver­si­ty of those who will be tak­ing part in this years Camp for Cli­mate Action in the UK : 14th –21st August. see the all at www.climatecamp.org.uk

The 7 — 5 minute long por­traits are also post­ed on numer­ous video plat­forms includ­ing youtube,archive.org, dai­ly motion,v‑social — Quick­time copies can be down­loaded from http://www.guidedurenard.org/bm/library/7 . If you want a dvd copy con­tact john@labofii.net

Inter­vie­wees are: Cather­ine — Cli­mate Camp; Dun­can Law — Tran­si­tion Town Brix­ton; Pauline — Rite2No; John Stew­art- Air­port Watch, Julie — Grow­ing Com­mu­ni­ties; Leo — Plane Stu­pid; Kevin Smith — Car­bon Trade
Watch.

International Day of Direct Action Against Climate Change and the G8 — UK events: Haringey… (& Jeff Luers solidarity callout)

Fri­day 8th June 2007
Direct Action for Cli­mate Jus­tice – Resis­tance is Self Defense!

We all know the ter­ri­fy­ing sta­tis­tics: a mil­lion species extinct by 2050, 19 of the 20 hottest years on record since 1980, Green­land and Antarc­ti­ca melt­ing, droughts, floods, famines … the G8 have had over 30 years to address cli­mate change and only suc­ceed­ed in pro­vid­ing tril­lions in sub­si­dies to the very indus­tries that are destroy­ing our plan­et and our future. And while the G8 con­tin­ues to line their pock­ets, island states dis­ap­pear and hun­dreds of thou­sands die as a result of the freak weath­er con­di­tions caused by their irra­tional and uncon­trol­lable obses­sion with nev­er end­ing eco­nom­ic growth.

G8 2007 climate day flierFri­day 8th June 2007
Direct Action for Cli­mate Jus­tice – Resis­tance is Self Defense!

We all know the ter­ri­fy­ing sta­tis­tics: a mil­lion species extinct by 2050, 19 of the 20 hottest years on record since 1980, Green­land and Antarc­ti­ca melt­ing, droughts, floods, famines … the G8 have had over 30 years to address cli­mate change and only suc­ceed­ed in pro­vid­ing tril­lions in sub­si­dies to the very indus­tries that are destroy­ing our plan­et and our future. And while the G8 con­tin­ues to line their pock­ets, island states dis­ap­pear and hun­dreds of thou­sands die as a result of the freak weath­er con­di­tions caused by their irra­tional and uncon­trol­lable obses­sion with nev­er end­ing eco­nom­ic growth.

We have a ten-year win­dow to act. As the mega­lo­ma­ni­ac G8 lead­ers meet in Ger­many, masked behind a bar­ri­er of fences and sol­diers, intent on lead­ing us fur­ther towards cat­a­stroph­ic and irre­versible cli­mate chaos, we must shout, scream and roar ‘no more’. Now is the time to take direct action and shut them down, them and their cli­mate crim­i­nal indus­try friends!

The 8th of June Inter­na­tion­al Day of Action Against Cli­mate Change and the G8 has been called by the Inter­na­tion­al Ris­ing Tide Net­work. This is a call for autonomous, decen­tral­ized actions appro­pri­ate for your town, city, or local area. Use this inter­na­tion­al day of action to sup­port local strug­gles against oil refiner­ies, gas pipelines, strip mines and coal-fired pow­er plants. Dis­rupt the finan­cial back­ers of the fos­sil fuel indus­try. Organ­ise work­shops to spread sus­tain­able post-petro­le­um liv­ing skills. Find a weak point in the infra­struc­ture of resource exploita­tion and throw a lit­er­al or sym­bol­ic wrench in the works. It’s time to vis­it your local pol­luters and give ’em hell!

We already know of actions planned across the UK, North Amer­i­ca, Ger­many, Cana­da and Aus­tralia and that’s just the start! By 8th June actions will be planned around the world. Pass this call out on to all envi­ron­men­tal jus­tice, cli­mate action, rad­i­cal sus­tain­abil­i­ty and relat­ed move­ments in all the G8 coun­tries and the Glob­al South.

Ris­ing Tide will cre­ate a col­lec­tion of out­reach and agit-prop mate­ri­als (includ­ing this call out in five dif­fer­ent lan­guages) that can be used by groups around the world to organ­ise local­ly. These mate­ri­als will be down­load­able from www.risingtide.org.uk and http://risingtidenorthamerica.org.
Direct action and civ­il dis­obe­di­ence are the ratio­nal response in this time of cri­sis. Sup­port the 8th of June Inter­na­tion­al Day of Direct Action against Cli­mate Change and the G8! Tell us about planned actions for cli­mate jus­tice being planned in your com­mu­ni­ty. Con­tact us — info@risingtide.org.uk and contact@risingtidenorthamerica.org

In June 2007 the G8 will under­stand the mean­ing of rebel­lion, revolt and rev­o­lu­tion. Their recipe for cat­a­stro­phe will be met with our world­wide resis­tance!

*G8 Day of Action Resources — Down­load­able G8 day of Action fly­ers and posters.
*Organ­ise a Crit­i­cal Mass Bike Ride on the 8th of June — here are some leaflet ideas to help you.

————————–
You could link your event in with Day of Sol­i­dar­i­ty with Jef­frey Free Luers, June 9, 2007:

June marks the sev­enth year that our friend and com­rade, Jef­frey “Free” Luers has been impris­oned and held cap­tive by the state. Sen­tenced to an out­ra­geous 22 years and 8 months for burn­ing three Sport Util­i­ty Vehi­cles (SUVs) at Roma­nia Chevro­let in Eugene, Jeff has con­tin­ued to be active in prison and fight back with his words and inspi­ra­tion. Although Jeff recent­ly won his appeal and is expect­ing a reduced sen­tence, this case is not over:

“I have spo­ken with my attor­ney and there are still many bat­tles ahead. Hard choic­es will have to be made. I am by no means close to walk­ing out of prison, just one step clos­er. This is a vic­to­ry, and while my own per­son­al strug­gle is mak­ing head­way oth­ers are just begin­ning.”

We encour­age peo­ple to orga­nize events for Jeff and oth­er polit­i­cal pris­on­ers, unit­ing strug­gles for human, earth, and ani­mal lib­er­a­tion. In Jef­f’s own words:

“This June, show your sol­i­dar­i­ty with me, and all those who have strug­gled, past and present, to make this world a bet­ter place. Strug­gle with us. Hold demon­stra­tions or gath­er­ings at fed­er­al build­ings or US embassies and demand change. It doesn’t mat­ter what cause or issue you fight for — we are all con­nect­ed. What does mat­ter is that we stand unit­ed and make our voic­es heard.”

More at http://freefreenow.org/june2007.html

»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»>ANNOUNCED UK EVENTS»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»>

HARINGEY CRITICAL MASS BIKE RIDE 2007

Can’t make it to Ger­many? Sick of the all those cars get­ting in your way on the auto­bahn! Don’t despair…join us on Sat­ur­day 9th of June for the 2007 Haringey Crit­i­cal Mass. A leisure­ly ride down the Green Lanes to reclaim our streets and send a breath of fresh air to those meet­ing in Ger­many.

Sat­ur­day 9th June • Assem­ble 12 Noon @ Manor House
• Fin­ish­ing at Chest­nuts Park for a pic­nic •

All Wel­come: espe­cial­ly cycles, scoot­ers, wheel­chairs, skate­boards, rollerblades, pedes­tri­ans…
Sup­port­ed by Haringey Sol­i­dar­i­ty Group www.haringey.org.uk

FOR CLEAN AIR AND A GREEN G8

WHY HAVE A CRITICAL MASS BIKE RIDE IN HARINGEY?
We are join­ing togeth­er on a Crit­i­cal Mass Bike Ride through Haringey as a colour­ful and fun way of high­light­ing envi­ron­men­tal and trans­port issues in the bor­ough. In the week when the G8 are gath­er­ing in Ger­many and the day
after the Inter­na­tion­al Day of Direct Action Against Cli­mate Change we should also be focus­ing on the glob­al cri­sis of cli­mate change and the envi­ron­men­tal impacts of oil depen­den­cy.

• It’s time we reclaimed our streets from the traf­fic and con­ges­tion that caus­es tox­ic lev­els of pol­lu­tion and injury and death.
• We want cycle lanes on Green Lanes and all over Haringey to make cycling a safer, more viable form of trans­port.
• We want mea­sures in place to reduce traf­fic speeds on all roads in Haringey, where dan­ger­ous dri­ving reg­u­lar­ly puts cyclists, chil­dren and pedes­tri­ans at risk.

WHAT’S THE G8 GOT TO DO WITH THIS?

• The G8 (Group of eight, most indus­tri­al­ized nations) Sum­mits are host­ed, on rota­tion, by the group’s mem­ber states. In 2007 the sum­mit is to be held on 6–8 June in Ros­tock, Ger­many.
• While it seems to be in the news a lot, Cli­mate Change is per­haps the issue that has received least atten­tion com­pared to the scale of destruc­tion that life on earth is fac­ing. It is the most seri­ous prob­lem fac­ing the world, more seri­ous than inter­na­tion­al ter­ror­ism, accord­ing to the UK Government’s chief sci­en­tif­ic advi­sor.
• Cli­mate change needs to be high­er on the G8 agen­da. How­ev­er, we can­not leave it just to the sci­en­tists and politi­cians to dis­man­tle the car­bon machine.
• This bike ride aims to high­light this issue through action and the pro­mo­tion of cycling.

Let’s cel­e­brate the free­dom and plea­sure of trav­el­ling by bike – it’s much more fun and much health­i­er than being stuck in a car in a traf­fic jam. This will be a fun day out for every­one in a safe, sup­port­ive, pos­i­tive atmos­phere, show­ing how much safer and more pleas­ant our streets can be.

COME AND JOIN US!

If you feel it’s time to pro­mote cycling and encour­age a more sus­tain­able Haringey, or if you would like to get involved, vis­it the Haringey Sol­i­dar­i­ty Group web­site: www.haringey.org.uk

Earth First! summer gathering — Wednesday 18th July until Sunday 22nd July 2007 — location & programme announced

What is the Earth First! Sum­mer Gath­er­ing?

* Are you fed up with bare-faced lies from politi­cians, big busi­ness and the media?
* Have you had enough of a world where cor­po­rate prof­it comes before life and dig­ni­ty?
* Do you want to see an end to mind­less con­sump­tion>
* Then this Gath­er­ing is for you! Read on…

EF! gathering '07 logo (rabbit/fence)What is the Earth First! Sum­mer Gath­er­ing?

* Are you fed up with bare-faced lies from politi­cians, big busi­ness and the media?
* Have you had enough of a world where cor­po­rate prof­it comes before life and dig­ni­ty?
* Do you want to see an end to mind­less con­sump­tion>
* Then this Gath­er­ing is for you! Read on…

Explor­ing alter­na­tives to the cor­po­rate world of greed, lies & exploita­tion -

The Earth First! Sum­mer Gath­er­ing is the place where peo­ple involved in rad­i­cal eco­log­i­cal direct action — or those who want to be involved — get togeth­er for five days of time and space to talk, walk, share skills, learn, play, rant, find out what’s going on, find out what’s next, live out­side, strate­gise, hang out, incite, laugh and con­spire.

The gath­er­ing is also a prac­ti­cal exam­ple of non-hier­ar­chi­cal low-impact liv­ing in action.

We are a diverse com­mu­ni­ty with a wide range of approach­es to our action, so there should be plen­ty to inter­est and inspire every­one whether you have been active for years or are com­plete­ly new to it all.

More info at earthfirstgathering.org.uk

Plane Stupid Callout for Local Groups

Plane Stu­pid (www.planestupid.com) is call­ing out for local Plane Stu­pid groups to form to fight the fastest grow­ing cause of cli­mate change (avi­a­tion) in your area. Plane Stu­pid thinks that local groups tak­ing action in their area but with­in a wider net­work of Plane Stu­pid activists is the best way to fight the unsus­tain­able growth of the avi­a­tion indus­try. If you would like to set up a group in your area all you need is a few enthu­si­as­tic mem­bers com­mit­ted to using direct action to fight cli­mate change.

Plane Stupid plane fist logoPlane Stu­pid (www.planestupid.com) is call­ing out for local Plane Stu­pid groups to form to fight the fastest grow­ing cause of cli­mate change (avi­a­tion) in your area. Plane Stu­pid thinks that local groups tak­ing action in their area but with­in a wider net­work of Plane Stu­pid activists is the best way to fight the unsus­tain­able growth of the avi­a­tion indus­try. If you would like to set up a group in your area all you need is a few enthu­si­as­tic mem­bers com­mit­ted to using direct action to fight cli­mate change.

The 2003 Avi­a­tion White Paper out­lines plans for between dou­ble and triple the cur­rent num­ber of pas­sen­ger flights. This involves mas­sive air­port expan­sion all over Britain at rate equiv­a­lent to the build­ing of a new Heathrow every 5 years. The UK’s top cli­ma­tol­o­gists pre­dict that avi­a­tion’s emis­sions alone are pre­dict­ed to exceed the gov­ern­men­t’s tar­get for the coun­try’s entire out­put of green­house gas­es in 2050 by around 134%. (Tyn­dall Cen­tre for Cli­mate
Chan­g­eRe­search)

Plane Stu­pid has become one of the direct action groups of the emerg­ing grass­roots cli­mate move­ment in Britain. Our dra­mat­ic impact has come by means of a series of high-pro­file direct actions and a near obses­sive focus on clear, basic demands that peo­ple under­stand: the scrap­ping of air­port expan­sion plans, a tax on air­craft fuel and
plane tick­ets, and an end to unnec­es­sary and unsus­tain­able short haul flights.

Since we formed in less than 18 months ago; we have dis­rupt­ed the world’s largest inter­na­tion­al avi­a­tion indus­try con­fer­ence in Cen­tral Lon­don; ground­ed planes through the occu­pa­tion of a taxi­way at the short-haul East Mid­lands Air­port; blocked the entrance to BAA’s head­quar­ters at Heathrow twice; staged a roof-top protest at easy­Jet’s cor­po­rate head­quar­ters in Lon­don, tem­porar­i­ly shut down tens of trav­el agents across the UK and helped angry Heathrow res­i­dents dis­rupt the trans­port min­is­ter’s speech. We also inspired and over­saw Britain’s first nation­al day of action against short haul flights, which saw local groups hold demon­stra­tions at six region­al air­ports and out­side Flight Cen­tre trav­el agents in cities across the UK.

Gov­ern­ment and indus­try’s prof­i­teer­ing from cre­at­ing cat­a­stroph­ic cli­mate change will go unchecked unless YOU do some­thing today! Join us by set­ting up a local group with some like mind­ed peo­ple in your area to help us scrap air­port expan­sion, get avi­a­tion fuel and tick­ets taxed and end­ing short haul flights.

Con­tact info@planestupid.com or call 07948 219 493 for advice on set­ting up a local group or for some­one to come and speak in your area about Plane Stu­pid. Also on the 12th and 13th of May we will be at the Cam­paign against Cli­mate Change con­fer­ence in Lon­don (http://www.campaigncc.org/) where you can come and speak to us.

www.planestupid.com
info@planestupid.com

SHAC TAKES THE FLAK: FLIMSY PRETEXT FOR COUNTRY-WIDE ARRESTS OF ANIMAL RIGHTS ACTIVISTS

4.5.07
In yet anoth­er ham­merblow aimed at the ani­mal rights move­ment, police made 32 arrests across the UK in the ear­ly hours of Tues­day morn­ing in ‘Oper­a­tion Achilles’. Assis­tant Chief Con­sta­ble Adri­an Lep­pard of Kent Police says the arrests are “one of the largest, if not the largest, police oper­a­tion that has tar­get­ed ani­mal extrem­ism in the UK.” Three prop­er­ties were also searched in Bel­gium and the Nether­lands.

4.5.07
In yet anoth­er ham­merblow aimed at the ani­mal rights move­ment, police made 32 arrests across the UK in the ear­ly hours of Tues­day morn­ing in ‘Oper­a­tion Achilles’. Assis­tant Chief Con­sta­ble Adri­an Lep­pard of Kent Police says the arrests are “one of the largest, if not the largest, police oper­a­tion that has tar­get­ed ani­mal extrem­ism in the UK.” Three prop­er­ties were also searched in Bel­gium and the Nether­lands.

700 police were involved as homes and ani­mal sanc­tu­ar­ies were raid­ed, with police seiz­ing com­put­ers, mobile phones and cash. The whole oper­a­tion was designed with max­i­mum pub­lic­i­ty in mind — the press were tipped off in advance and duti­ful­ly report­ed on the lat­est crack­down on ani­mal rights ‘extrem­ism’. Almost all those arrest­ed had some con­nec­tion with the SHAC cam­paign

Of course what did­n’t hit the head­lines was the num­ber of prop­er­ties raid­ed with­out arrests being made and the fact that 24 hours lat­er only nine of those arrest­ed had been charged — two with black­mail and the oth­er sev­en with ‘con­spir­a­cy to black­mail’. Twen­ty were released on bail and one with­out charge. Two of those nicked, main organ­is­ers in the SHAC cam­paign, have been held for fur­ther ques­tion­ing.

Cru­cial­ly, the police inves­ti­ga­tion — in a nod to cor­po­rate mar­tial law — used intel­li­gence and foren­sic sup­port from the pri­vate sec­tor. The phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal and biotech­nol­o­gy indus­try greet­ed news of the raids with glee: “News of today’s oper­a­tion will act as a great fil­lip to the med­ical research com­mu­ni­ty across Europe,” said a state­ment issued by Ais­ling Bur­nand, chief exec­u­tive of Britain’s BioIn­dus­try Asso­ci­a­tion.

One source close to SHAC told SchNEWS, “This has all the hall­marks of a fish­ing expe­di­tion, designed to cause mas­sive dis­rup­tion to ani­mal rights cam­paigns and show Big Phar­ma here and abroad that the police are mak­ing strides against the ani­mal rights move­ment.”

NETCU CLOSES IN

As details emerged of the botched raid on Fresh­fields Ani­mal Sanc­tu­ary in Liv­er­pool, sanc­tu­ary head Dave Cal­len­dar told SchNEWS, “At 5.30 they kicked in the door and seized three staff mem­bers. At 6.20 they seized two oth­ers as they turned up for work. There were about six­ty cop­pers — they set up a cor­don and refused access to any­one. Those seized were held in vans but not arrest­ed. My farm man­ag­er had his col­lar­bone bro­ken after he was grabbed by three police when he climbed the back wall to check on our pigs. He was held in a van for three hours and refused access to med­ical atten­tion. Although the police brought an RSPCA inspec­tor with them it was clear that when we regained access to the site that noth­ing had been done for the ani­mals. Also they allowed ani­mals to escape, which we’re still look­ing for. They took every sin­gle piece of hard­ware, mobile phones, pho­to­copiers, you name it — but they did­n’t take a sin­gle piece of paper­work. It’s dif­fi­cult to see it as any­thing oth­er then delib­er­ate intim­i­da­tion and dis­rup­tion — nobody here is involved with the Hunt­ing­don cam­paign. We’re a pro-active com­mu­ni­ty organ­i­sa­tion and we’re not going to let them walk all over us.”

The raids come against a back­drop of a decline in crim­i­nal inci­dents relat­ed to ani­mal rights and demon­strate that the Nation­al Extrem­ism Tac­ti­cal Co-ordi­nat­ing Unit’s (see www.netcu.org.uk) efforts are now aimed firm­ly at the ‘legit­i­mate’ above ground ani­mal rights move­ment. With SHAC once again able to con­duct demos out­side HLS (see SchNEWS 581) and activism spread­ing across Europe, Britain’s polit­i­cal police seem intent on decap­i­tat­ing the A.R. move­ment, by any means nec­es­sary.

* See www.shac.net for more
* Fresh­fields Ani­mal Sanc­tu­ary see www.freshfieldsrescue.org.uk

Call for Submissions: Zine on Property Destruction

Enter­ing the rad­i­cal com­mu­ni­ty, many quick­ly find them­selves con­stant­ly hear­ing about debate over prop­er­ty destruc­tion. Is it vio­lence? Does it mat­ter if it’s vio­lence? Is it effec­tive? Is it alien­at­ing? And on and on. I’ve been hear­ing this argu­ment pret­ty much since I reg­u­lar­ly start­ed attend­ing protests. At this point, I almost don’t want to deal with the sub­ject. Nat­u­ral­ly, you’re ask­ing, “Then why the hell do you want to make a zine about it?”

Enter­ing the rad­i­cal com­mu­ni­ty, many quick­ly find them­selves con­stant­ly hear­ing about debate over prop­er­ty destruc­tion. Is it vio­lence? Does it mat­ter if it’s vio­lence? Is it effec­tive? Is it alien­at­ing? And on and on. I’ve been hear­ing this argu­ment pret­ty much since I reg­u­lar­ly start­ed attend­ing protests. At this point, I almost don’t want to deal with the sub­ject. Nat­u­ral­ly, you’re ask­ing, “Then why the hell do you want to make a zine about it?”

The answer is sim­ple: I may be sick of the debate, but that’s just me. As the war in Iraq drags on (drag­ging blood­ied Iraqi corpse upon blood­ied Iraqi corpse with it) and dis­con­tent and dis­il­lu­sion­ment with this whole socio-polit­i­cal-eco­nom­ic sys­tem increas­es, more peo­ple are get­ting involved in the fight against cap­i­tal­ism and its machines of war (both the armies abroad and the police at home). For many, when they start going to protests and demon­stra­tions, they have at best mixed feel­ings about things like prop­er­ty destruc­tion, vio­lent­ly resist­ing the police, or even just march­ing in the street with­out a per­mit. And some appre­hen­sion about these tac­tics is com­plete­ly under­stand­able. After all, every­thing in this sys­tem is designed to teach us that prop­er­ty (or per­haps more accu­rate­ly, cor­po­rate prop­er­ty) is sacred, that police should always be obeyed (or else) and that break­ing the law, even small laws, is moral­ly and eth­i­cal­ly wrong and can nev­er be jus­ti­fi­able.

And so, this is a call for arti­cles, sto­ries, art, or any­thing else about the tac­tic of prop­er­ty destruc­tion and its mer­its for a zine that seeks to give those on the fence about this issue a gen­tle nudge (and maybe con­vince them to rip down the fence!). Since this is meant to be a zine for peo­ple new to social move­ments, I respect­ful­ly ask that the tone of the arti­cles keep that in mind when choos­ing their words. To put it plain­ly, please no anti-lib­er­al rants–they piss me off too, but this is sup­posed to be the case for prop­er­ty destruc­tion, not the case against lib­er­als (maybe next time!).

When I say arti­cles, I mean pre­vi­ous­ly pub­lished or unpub­lished arti­cles argu­ing for the valid­i­ty or effec­tive­ness of prop­er­ty destruc­tion. It does­n’t even have to be some­thing you wrote. If there’s an arti­cle that you think is real­ly great and think that it should be includ­ed, tell me about it (things like, where I can find it, who wrote it, and how I can get ahold of them). There’s two kinds of sto­ries that would be real­ly great to have for this zine: per­son­al accounts and “his­tor­i­cal” accounts. Per­son­al accounts would be some­thing talk­ing about wit­ness­ing or even com­mit­ting an act of prop­er­ty destruc­tion, how it made you feel, what impact it had, etc. Obvi­ous­ly this is very sen­si­tive, so try­ing to be rel­a­tive­ly vague is best (and also see the next para­graph for the best way to sub­mit things like that). A “his­tor­i­cal” account would be more of a gen­er­al sto­ry (prefer­ably con­tem­po­rary) of how prop­er­ty destruc­tion put pres­sure on an insti­tu­tion to win a con­crete goal. Art would be any­thing that would be an image. A car­toon, a cool draw­ing, what­ev­er.

If you have any­thing to con­tribute, please send an email to tacticaldiversity@gmail.com. I may want to edit some of your sub­mis­sion for var­i­ous rea­sons (most like­ly space). Any edits or cuts will be run by you first. If for some rea­son you can’t or don’t want to sub­mit some­thing online, send an email and we can dis­cuss oth­er meth­ods of sub­mis­sion. As was said above, send­ing per­son­al accounts about prop­er­ty destruc­tion over email is not nec­es­sar­i­ly a good idea. In fact, for both our sakes, it’s a bad idea. Any per­son­al accounts should be sub­mit­ted will an anony­mous email ser­vice like www.willselfdestruct.com (be sure to make it at least 1 view). If you want me to respond some­how, you can leave an email address in the will­selfde­struct mes­sage and I can respond in kind. If you don’t leave a way to respond to you, I may make edits with­out run­ning them by you first. Also, a major goal is to make sure that every piece pub­lished is pub­lished with the cre­ator’s per­mis­sion. This zine isn’t going to be sold any­where and will be dis­trib­uted for free, but I still don’t want to use oth­er peo­ple’s stuff in this zine with­out their express per­mis­sion. So yeah, don’t sub­mit oth­er peo­ple’s work act­ing like it’s your’s and get peo­ple pissed at me. If you run an infos­hop or any oth­er rad­i­cal space that could dis­trib­ute this zine upon com­ple­tion and are inter­est­ed in receiv­ing copies, drop a line and you’ll be kept in the loop when it comes time to pub­lish.

In love and rage,
Casey Ford

Reclaim Power — 15min film version online

In the sum­mer of 2006, 600 peo­ple set up a Camp for Cli­mate Action in the shad­ow of one of the biggest C02 emit­ters in Europe: Drax coal-fired pow­er sta­tion in York­shire / UK. With over one hun­dred work­shops on a wide range of top­ics, the 10 day camp was a space of col­lec­tive learn­ing, sus­tain­able liv­ing and tak­ing direct action on the root caus­es of cli­mate change. The gath­er­ing that showed prac­ti­cal low ener­gy solu­tions in action, cul­mi­nat­ed in a day of protest and mass direct action in an attempt to shut down Drax.

In the sum­mer of 2006, 600 peo­ple set up a Camp for Cli­mate Action in the shad­ow of one of the biggest C02 emit­ters in Europe: Drax coal-fired pow­er sta­tion in York­shire / UK. With over one hun­dred work­shops on a wide range of top­ics, the 10 day camp was a space of col­lec­tive learn­ing, sus­tain­able liv­ing and tak­ing direct action on the root caus­es of cli­mate change. The gath­er­ing that showed prac­ti­cal low ener­gy solu­tions in action, cul­mi­nat­ed in a day of protest and mass direct action in an attempt to shut down Drax.

You can down­load this 15 min ver­sion of the film ‘Reclaim Pow­er — voic­es from the camp for cli­mate action’ here:

http://video.indymedia.org/en/2007/04/821.shtml

order the mul­ti­lin­gual DVD 62 min + sev­er­al extras — or this 15 min ver­sion in DVD qual­i­ty here: orders@cinerebelde.org or networking@climatecamp.org.uk

More infor­ma­tion about the camp 2007: http://climatecamp.org.uk

You are wel­come to post or link up this 15 min clip on your web­sites. Please include a link to cine rebelde: http://www.cinerebelde.org/site.php3?id_rubrique=166〈=en