West Midlands – Page 6

Activists temporarily halt work at Huntington Lane

On Tuesday 5th July activists from the Telford no new coal (aka Defend Huntington Lane) protest site halted early morning operations by storming the open cast mine. Two protesters dead locked on to heavy plant machinery, disrupting the destruction caused by them. Activists have been on the site for 15 months and are awaiting eviction papers.

https://wmclimateaction.wordpress.com/2011/07/11/activists-temporarily-halt-work/

Stop New Nuclear newsletter no 1, July 2011

Welcome to Stop New Nuclear’s first newsletter. You receive this newsletter because you have signed one of the pledges, or you signed up to the newsletter. Thank you for this.

We plan to send a newsletter to all pledgers and newsletter subscribers about once a month, and possibly more frequently in the weeks before the blockade. Feel free to share and distribute this newsletter.

Welcome to Stop New Nuclear’s first newsletter. You receive this newsletter because you have signed one of the pledges, or you signed up to the newsletter. Thank you for this.

Stop New Nuclear, an alliance of eight anti-nuclear groups committed to preventing the further expansion of the nuclear power industry in the UK was formed in May 2011. The plan for our first action, the blockading of Hinkley Point nuclear power station on 3 October is progressing well, and we already have a site for a camp (not far from Hinkley Point), and people working on transport and local accommodation for people who are unable or unwilling to camp. There is still a lot to do, but there is also a committed team in place around Hinkley Point working on it.

Since the publication of our call-out in late May, we have received about 100 pledges in total, of which more than 30 are blockading pledges. This is a good start, but we need many more. We need to grow. Our vision is to blockade Hinkley Point nuclear power stations with hundreds of people, and we think we can achieve this, if we all work together. We still have three months.

Please contact as many of your friends and relatives as possible and invite them to take part.

News about Hinkley Point
EDF (Electricity de France), the owners of Hinkley Point, did put in an application for preliminary works for its new nuclear power station in late November 2010,involving pre-construction activity across an area of more than 420 acres stretching from the Severn Estuary to the village of Shurton, filling in a beautiful valley and even starting excavation of the power station foundations down to a depth of up to 11 metres. It is still possible to object to this planning application. The deadline for objections has been extended to 28 July 2011. For more information, go to Stop Hinkley’s website at http://stophinkley.org/Temporary/31Jan2011.htm.

After the government published the set of National Policy Statements on Energy, including the one on nuclear power generation (see http://www.decc.gov.uk/en/content/cms/meeting_energy/consents_planning/nps_en_infra/nps_en_infra.aspx), it is now up to parliament to approve them. It did not come as a surprise that the government approved eight existing nuclear sites for nuclear new build: Bradwell,Essex; Hartlepool; Heysham, Lancashire; Hinkley Point, Somerset; Oldbury, South Gloucestershire; Sellafield, Cumbria; Sizewell, Suffolk; and Wylfa in Anglesey.

EDF announced that it aims to put in an application for the nuclear power station at Hinkley Point to the Infrastructure Planning Commission in October. This shows how important it is that our blockade on 3 October is big enough to provide a strong signal to government and EDF that we will not rest until they give up their plans for nuclear new build in this country (and elsewhere).

Mobilisation
We need your help with the mobilisation for the blockade. We have already distributed nearly 5,000 copies of the call-out (see http://stopnewnuclear.org.uk/node/10). We have just ordered a second print-run of 10,000 copies, and we need your help to get them out. Please let us know if you can help distribute some, or go to a festival this summer where this might be appropriate, and we will send you as many as you need. If you can contribute to the expenses for postage, that would be great, but more important is your help in getting the message out.

You can also help us by talking to your local Friends of the Earth, Greenpeace, Transition Town, People & Planet or any other group that you think might be open to support the blockade. Asks them to sign the organisational pledge (see http://stopnewnuclear.org.uk/pledges), or maybe even to organise a group or minibus to go to participate in the blockade.

Training
We have teamed up with Seeds for Change and Turning the Tide to provide training for the blockade. We are in the process of organising training days/afternoons/evenings in Bristol, Yorkshire, Wales, London, and Somerset, but this list is open-ended. You can help us by organising a group and a venue for a training in your area. If you have any questions regarding training, please get in touch.

Training dates will be announced on the website. So please check back regularly for updates.

What you can do
The campaign and the blockade become powerful through your participation. You can help us by organising an affinity group to take part in the blockade (or to give support), by mobilising in your community, by organising a training, but also by reaching out to your local media about the dangers of nuclear power and our campaign to stop new nuclear power stations in Britain.

On the weekend before and the day of the blockade, we will need a lot of practical support. Some of you have already kindly indicated when you signed the pledge that you can help in various ways. Thank you. When you arrive at the weekend camp or at the blockade your support will be invaluable. If anyone else wants to help by waving a placard, helping with legal support, helping out at the tea stall or by providing practical help with camp logistics, then just let us know.

Stop New Nuclear in the news
On 15 June, we sent out our first press release (see http://stopnewnuclear.org.uk/node/24). Since then, we have received more news coverage than expected, thanks partly to the government’s publication of the National Policy Statements on Energy, and eight sites for nuclear new build. Stop New Nuclear was mentioned on the BBC News website (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-13887579), and in local media around Hinkley Point
(see http://www.burnham-on-sea.com/news/2011/hinkley-selected-22-06-11.php, http://www.thisisthewestcountry.co.uk/news/somerset_news/9105147.Protesters_plan_Hinkley_Point_blockade/, http://www.thisissomerset.co.uk/Nuclear-plants-ahead-day-West-changed-forever/story-12826052-detail/story.html).
We also did a few interviews for local radio. This is an encouraging start, more than three months before the action. You can check news coverage about Stop New Nuclear at http://stopnewnuclear.org.uk/inthepress. Let us know if we missed anything.

Donations!
We need them. We expect the campaign to cost about £10,000, of which we have been able to raise £2,000 until now. This means we need your help to raise the funds needed for this campaign – to cover for the flier, the camp logistics, transport, etc… Every donation is welcome – no matter how small. Please send your donation to:

Stop New Nuclear
c/o 5 Caledonian Road
London N1 9DX

Or donate online at http://stopnewnuclear.org.uk/donate

Action Update + Summer Gathering + website

The latest EF! Action Update is out – download it, subscribe and distribute.

The Summer Gathering is coming up – see here for the location and programme, and here for more details

The latest EF! Action Update is out – download it, subscribe and distribute.

The Summer Gathering is coming up – see here for the location and programme, and here for more details

This website got a bit sick, but all is pretty much better now.

Latest Action Update

Climbing, blocking, stinking, sabbing earth defenders rock!
Roll on down to the EF! Summer Gathering in mid-August.

Paint-throwing, blockading, rioting, boarding up offices and gathering hundreds of thousands together – all ways to try and defeat the Nuclear Behemoth.

Climbing, blocking, stinking, sabbing earth defenders rock!
Roll on down to the EF! Summer Gathering in mid-August.

Paint-throwing, blockading, rioting, boarding up offices and gathering hundreds of thousands together – all ways to try and defeat the Nuclear Behemoth.

Blockading coal in Bangladesh, copper mining in Peru, Italian ecotage against incineration, Greek firebombs opposing landfill, pro-rickshaw car-smashing in India, actions and camping to protect the Tasmanian forests, and anti-mining trashing of many things in Indonesia…just a taste from around the world of how people campaign to stop the destruction of the earth and it’s inhabitants.

More news from the front lines: travellers digging in, mobile phone mast torching, a first time hunt sabber’s diary, the latest from the GM ‘anti-lobby’, and tracking new developments – UK fracking, FFS!

Plus with the latest advice from AUntie Miffy, contacts and dates to get you in the mood for Captain Swing, download, distribute, subscribe and get out there, and stuck in.

earthfirst.org.uk/efau
[- to subscribe & get the EF!AU as soon as it’s produced, rather than when we put it up here!]

Call out for workshops for EF! Summer Gathering 2011

This year’s Earth First Summer Gathering takes place in East Anglia this year, starting on the 10th of August and running for five days. With six workshops tents we have space for over 100 discussions, presentations and workshops. The spaces are filling up fast, but there is still time to book a spot. So if you’ve got an idea you wish to highlight, whether it’s related to ecological defence or social resistance here is your chance. The gathering is attended by hundreds of individuals interested and participating in struggles around the UK and Europe.

To get in touch just email efsummergathering2011announce@riseup.net with a blurb of for you workshop or discussion and we’ll do our best to fit you in.

For monthly email updates for the gathering subscribe to efsummergathering@lists.riseup.net

Glos Guerilla Gardening meet-up

I’ve been talking to lots of people interested in starting some form of guerilla gardening group in gloucestershire, and I’m sure there are many more of you out there…

So lets get gardening!

I’ve been talking to lots of people interested in starting some form of guerilla gardening group in gloucestershire, and I’m sure there are many more of you out there…

So lets get gardening!

This is a chance for activists, gardeners, neo-diggers, allotmentless peasants, permaculture initiates *chuckles* and anyone interested in the gloucestershire eco-village project to meet each other, to network and sow a little beauty into our otherwise dreary world.

If you’re interested in doing a little guerilla gardening next Thursday [the 23rd] contact…

guerillagarden [at] hush [dot] com

Bring whatever you think will be useful – seeds, cuttings, seedlings, seeds bombs, gardening tools, coats, drinks’n’munchies, hi-vis?!- for hiding in plane sight.

Don’t worry if you don’t have any of these things, there’ll be plenty for you to do- come along and get stuck in!

It’ll be somewhere near gloucester, maybe even near the town center, or we could do it in the more rural outskirts- still open to suggestions for a location to garden- email me.

I have a couple in mind, but I’m hoping someone will know of the perfect place. We’ll all decide on the day, maybe spread our gardening around a little.

I’ll be focusing mainly on food plants- but bring anything you’d like to plant!

“..yet my mind was not at rest, because nothing was acted, and thoughts run in me that words and writings were all nothing, and must die, for action is the life of all, and if thou dost not act, thou dost nothing,”

Gerrard Winstanley, A Watch-Word to the City of London and the Armie, August 1649

The Spuds don’t work. Norwich, noon, 23rd July 2011.

British trials of genetically modified blight resistant spuds have been failing for the last ten years. But a conventionally bred variety of blight resistant potatoes has been available for 3 years. So why are we still paying for their dangerous experiment?

Come ride with us on the back of a trailer load of safe effective spuds as we go to deliver them to the Sainsbury Laboratory outside Norwich. It’s one of only two possible open air trials for GM crops in Britain this year. Yet despite being publicly funded, it’s so secretive no one will even say if it’s been planted. Join us for tunes, chips and good cheer as we go and show them that we have already got the answers they say they’re looking for.

****************************************

*A tale of two spuds…*
For the last 10 years, researchers at the Sainsbury laboratory at the John Innes Centre in Norwich have spent 1.7 million pounds of public money failing to develop a genetically modified potato resistant to the fungal disease blight. This project is so secretive and unaccountable that the laboratory has refused to even confirm if a trial has been planted this season, or if they’ve been forced to abandon any hopes of making the technology work. Public rejection of the risks associated with eating genetically modified food means that even if the engineering involved was successful, there would be no market for the crop. Meanwhile, 3 years ago a small Welsh research charity dedicated to conventional breeding techniques developed a spud that is spectacularly resistant to blight. Not only does the crop pose no threat to health, the environment, or neighbouring farmers; it works. Over 6 different varieties are now available, and being grown on a commercial scale.

*Delivering the answer to GM crops- *

We think the Sainsbury’s laboratory and the government should be told that we’ve found the potatoes they’re looking for. So we’re going to deliver them to the doors of their research centre. We’ll be forming a carnival procession of families and farmers led by the next generation on pedal tractors, each towing a mini trailer of safe spuds. There’ll be pedal powered tunes, and a full sized tractor to jump on. There will almost certainly be chips.

*The rationale*
The campaign against GM crops ten years ago was so successful that GM almost completely vanished from our fields and supermarkets, and many people have forgotten the issues associated with the technology. But in many other parts of the world peasant farmers have been desperately fighting its spread, and laws are changing in Europe that would make it much easier for GM to be grown in Britain. Despite pre-election promises to the contrary the coalition claims it intends to be ‘the most pro GM this country has ever seen’.

Let’s call time on an outmoded technology that continues to waste money in failing projects, while simultaneously threatening the very science that’s actually producing working alternatives quickly and cheaply. For too long the biotech companies have gone unchallenged in their claims that GM can create genuinely useful crops when in fact all the significant advancements in the last decade have come through conventional breeding. With the renewed threat of GM on the horizon campaigners need to get together again to show the rest of the country (and each other) that we’re still here, and we’ve got an even better case than ever. This is a chance to take the initiative with the media, to tell a story which explains clearly and practically why the pro GM lobby is wrong. That it’s us, and not the corporations that have the answers to the food crisis. And we know how to turn them into an irresistible photo shoot.

*Our Key media messages*
Genetic Modification is unaccountable, expensive, and it doesn’t work. We need to stop wasting public money on something that no one wants and start celebrating the real advances in agriculture.

*What we need*

You, and the people you know, and anyone you think might be interested.

This project is being worked on by Stop GM in conjunction with the Genetic Engineering Network. It’s a grassroots initiative that evolved after one national gathering, several months of pondering and an over excited long weekend in Wales. Several experienced grassroots campaigners will be working on the project from now until the event, but we need help getting the word out. If you think you could help by distributing email information about the event, dropping it about in any social media you may be involved in, letting your local growing projects or social justice groups know, distributing our soon to be produced ‘Little Red Tractor and the Quest of the GM-free Spuds’ leaflet or even organizing a coach to attend from your area, we’d love to hear from you.

For more information please check briefing to help you object to proposed field trial of GM potatoes (http://www.gmfreeze.org/uploads/63A_spud_briefing_jic_final.pdf), and how to get hold of the solution www.sarvari-trust.org.

Please put it in your diary, forward this message on to anyone who might be interested, and hopefully we’ll see you there.

All the best,

The Stop GM Crew.

http://stopgm.org.uk/

Land is Ours autumn gathering 2011

The Land Is Ours
Autumn Gathering 2011

TLIO are hosting a weekend gathering from Sat 8th to Sun 9th October this year at Monkton Wyld Court, near Axminster, Dorset. Come and enjoy a feast of inspirational talks, open discussions, workshops and evening entertainment in the pleasantly eccentric setting of Monkton Wyld.

Talks and workshops will include the following themes:

The Land Is Ours
Autumn Gathering 2011

Talks and workshops will include the following themes:

• The need for land redistribution – post Peak-Oil

• Agricultural subsidies – who for & for what?/Campaigning against Megafarms.

• The Localism Bill and other Planning Reforms — Threats and Opportunities.

• Defending public forests.

• Setting up land trusts, for housing and land projects.

• Reclaim the Fields and Via Campesina.

• What future for direct action land campaigns?

Other proposals for workshops etc are welcome.

Places are limited so please book early. There is no fee for attendance, but lunch and supper are provided at £6 per meal, and bed and breakfast costs per night are £25 for a bed, £15 for a yoga mat in the main hall, or £10 camping (there will be a limited no of places half-price for the main hall and camping), available Friday, Saturday and Sunday evening. Please book in advance, by contacting

info@tlio.org.uk or 01297 561359
http://www.tlio.org.uk/TLIO-autumngathering2011

Please Note: There may be a TLIO Summer Gathering happening in the West Country area this summer as well. Keep checking the website for further announcements

squatting stories wanted

Calling All Squatters!

Got any positive, funny or random stories from your squatting experiences?

We’re putting together an exhibition and zine with positive squatting stories to contradict and show the other side to squatting, to the one regurgitated again and again by the mainstream media.

Calling All Squatters!

Got any positive, funny or random stories from your squatting experiences?

We’re putting together an exhibition and zine with positive squatting stories to contradict and show the other side to squatting, to the one regurgitated again and again by the mainstream media.

Wherever you squatted, be it Brixton or Kurdistan, or whether you squat now or you did in the 70s, any positive stories are welcomed – the more varied in time & place the better. Some of the stories we have so far include from after the second world war when families took refuge by squatting abandoned army barracks, as so many homes had be bombed in the blitz, as well as some stories of how newly arrived Asian families to Britain gave up the council housing they had received to squat together in empty estates to avoid the racial abuse they were suffering.

Your stories don’t have to be this extreme though, anything that is positive, funny or in some way a success of managing to stick it up to the landlords or a successful use of squatting for a protest or campaign, is very much welcomed. The stories don’t have to be your own experiences but can be ones of friends, or ones you’ve heard, just so long as they are true.

Any good pictures you might have that can accompany the stories would be brilliant too. Also, if you have pictures of transformations you’ve made turning a destroyed building into a beautiful home, they would also be really appreciated. Of course you can be completely anonymous from anything you contribute.

Email stories & stuff to homemade@lorax.org.uk

Many thanks!

Common Ground For Climate Action, 4-5 June 2011

Common Ground for Climate Action (the meeting after CC Space for Change)

A meeting facilitated by the Rhizome Collective

DATE: 10:30am 4th June – 5:30pm 5th June
VENUE: Grow Heathrow, Sipson, West London

Who is this meeting for?

People who:
– have previously been involved in organising CFCA or other radical grassroots climate action
AND

Common Ground for Climate Action (the meeting after CC Space for Change)

A meeting facilitated by the Rhizome Collective

DATE: 10:30am 4th June – 5:30pm 5th June
VENUE: Grow Heathrow, Sipson, West London

Who is this meeting for?

People who:
– have previously been involved in organising CFCA or other radical grassroots climate action
AND
– have energy to positively explore options and strategies for
co-ordinating nationally into the future.

This meeting is NOT:
– A place to revisit the decision to pause national climate camp
activities in 2011 (though we will talk about the various reactions to that decision)
– A place to talk about what to do with Climate Camp resources (this will need to be later on)

We will be:
– Learning about and exploring our common ground in three key areas:
* What is happening in the wider world?
* Where do we fit?
* What future impact could we have?
– Exploring ways to manage disagreement, live with difference, and build trust

ARE YOU COMING?
If you’re interested in coming please email
spaceforchange@climatecamp.org.uk (by 26 May if possible for planning).
Follow this link for lots more information about the background to the meeting, as well as venue details and the agenda so far:
http://www.climatecamp.org.uk/events/2011/06/04/common-ground-for-climate-action

KITCHEN CO-ORDINATORS NEEDED
We are in urgent need of kitchen co-ordinators, if you think you can do this then please contact spaceforchange@climatecamp.org.uk ASAP

SATURDAY NIGHT SOCIAL
If you would be interested in organising some live music or a social for this event, then please email spaceforchange@climatecamp.org.uk

WHO ELSE IS COMING?
Please forward this message to anyone you think would be interested in coming