Category: Yorkshire & The Humber

York­shire & the Hum­ber

Climate Camp– Open invite to a UK wide decision making meeting – Leeds 26–27 Jan

The Cli­mate Camp on its own did­n’t stop cli­mate change — but it’s part of a grow­ing social move­ment that can! Come and take the next steps for­ward at the upcom­ing UK-wide meet­ing on Jan 26–27 in Leeds. Every­one is wel­come, whether you came to the camp, or were sim­ply inspired by it.

The Cli­mate Camp on its own did­n’t stop cli­mate change — but it’s part of a grow­ing social move­ment that can! Come and take the next steps for­ward at the upcom­ing UK-wide meet­ing on Jan 26–27 in Leeds. Every­one is wel­come, whether you came to the camp, or were sim­ply inspired by it.
Please spread this invite far and wide!

The Cam­p’s at Drax and Heathrow had 4 key aims: pop­u­lar edu­ca­tion, direct action, sus­tain­able liv­ing, and build­ing a social move­ment to col­lec­tive­ly tack­le cli­mate change. Region­al meet­ings have been hap­pen­ing up and down the coun­try, and the last nation­al meet­ing was in Oxford .We will meet in Leeds to col­lec­tive­ly share all our ideas for tak­ing our aims into 2008.

The meet­ing will start at 11am on Sat­ur­day morn­ing and end at 4pm on the Sun­day- although if you can’t stay for the whole week­end you are still wel­come!

If you are plan­ning to arrive on the Sat­ur­day morn­ing please head straight down to the venue which is The Com­mon Place, 23–25 Warf Street, LS2 7EQ
www.thecommonplace.org.uk – you can find a map at
http://www.multimap.com/maps/?hloc=GB|LS2%207EQ and you will notice that it is walk­ing dis­tance from the train and bus sta­tions.

If you are plan­ning on arriv­ing the Fri­day night – before the gath­er­ing- please email process@climatecamp.org.uk so we know! There will be accom­mo­da­tion avail­able for the Fri­day night – but at a com­mu­ni­ty cen­tre called Oblong ( http://oblongleeds.org.uk) rather than at the Com­mon Place.
Food will be served at the Com­mon Place over the week­end- so please bring about £10 to con­tribute towards the food and accom­mo­da­tion costs if you stay the whole week­end. Of course if you real­ly can not afford it then you are none the less very wel­come!

There will also be a trav­el pool (where­by peo­ple who live near­by and who have min­i­mal trav­el costs will be asked to make dona­tions to off set the expense for those who had to make much longer jour­neys to attend). Accom­mo­da­tion is sim­ply floor space- so please bring a camp­ing mat and sleep­ing bag. If you have par­tic­u­lar access needs, and/or if sleep­ing on the floor is not suit­able for you please email us as soon as pos­si­ble so we can make appro­pri­ate arrange­ments.

If you are plan­ning to bring chil­dren who will need child care facil­i­ties please let us at process@climatecamp.org.uk know as soon as pos­si­ble. The agen­da for this meet­ing has not yet been set — if you have any ideas about top­ics you think it is impor­tant for us to dis­cuss, please email
process@climatecamp.org.uk- by Fri­day the 19th Jan­u­ary
Hope to see you there!

camp for cli­mate action net­work­ing group
networking@climatecamp.org.uk
http://www.climatecamp.org.uk

January York Critical Mass Ride Shock — Rain!

4 Jan 2008

The Jan­u­ary ride saw the first time in four­teen months that’s it’s been rain­ing too heav­i­ly to get a CM off the ground!

Those of us that braved the storms saw the sense of retir­ing to a pub for a warm­ing pint.

York CM4 Jan 2008

The Jan­u­ary ride saw the first time in four­teen months that’s it’s been rain­ing too heav­i­ly to get a CM off the ground!

Those of us that braved the storms saw the sense of retir­ing to a pub for a warm­ing pint.

The moral: there’s always a rea­son to turn up, first Fri­day of the month by the Min­ster, 5:30 for 6.

NEW BIKE SLIPS LINK!

Prosecution collapses in Superglue Penny trial

Dur­ing the Camp for Cli­mate Action at Heathrow last year, large num­bers of police invad­ed the site, only to be peace­ful­ly resist­ed by the Campers, and eject­ed from the site with impres­sive restraint. The pre­text for this attack by the police was so that the For­ward Intel­li­gence Team could “do a head­count” (in spite of the face that local police offi­cers were already patrolling the site, and were pre­sum­ably per­fect­ly capa­ble of ful­fill­ing this task). It is far more like­ly that the real rea­son behind the police action was their desire to pro­voke a riot, and thus have an excuse to destroy the camp and bang heads. After the incur­sion the Ter­ri­to­r­i­al Sup­port Group (riot police) were ordered to kit them­selves out in full gear, to pre­pare for a sec­ond assault on the camp.

Dur­ing the Camp for Cli­mate Action at Heathrow last year, large num­bers of police invad­ed the site, only to be peace­ful­ly resist­ed by the Campers, and eject­ed from the site with impres­sive restraint. The pre­text for this attack by the police was so that the For­ward Intel­li­gence Team could “do a head­count” (in spite of the face that local police offi­cers were already patrolling the site, and were pre­sum­ably per­fect­ly capa­ble of ful­fill­ing this task). It is far more like­ly that the real rea­son behind the police action was their desire to pro­voke a riot, and thus have an excuse to destroy the camp and bang heads. After the incur­sion the Ter­ri­to­r­i­al Sup­port Group (riot police) were ordered to kit them­selves out in full gear, to pre­pare for a sec­ond assault on the camp.

This would have come to pass if it had not been for the swift response of an activist who super­glued her hands to the gates in order to deny them access.
As a result of this action Pen­ny East­wood was charged with obstruct­ing the police in the course of their duty, and she entered a plea of inno­cent on the grounds that the police were not act­ing in accor­dance with their duty.

After months of delay, the tri­al took place at Uxbridge on 8th and 9th Jan­u­ary, at which the pros­e­cu­tion case col­lapsed. The dis­trict judge pre­sid­ing right­ly spot­ted that the police’s case was a load of rub­bish, because they pro­duced no evi­dence that they were pre­vent­ed from car­ry­ing out a law­ful duty.

This case proves (if any proof were need­ed), that the police are ever hap­py to employ vio­lence in pur­suit of their polit­i­cal aims. It also shows that the Met are spec­tac­u­lar­ly stu­pid. I sup­pose we should take some com­fort that there are still judges in Britain who think that the pro­vok­ing of riots is out­side a police officer’s nor­mal course of duty.

Pen­ny said “I was try­ing to de-esca­late the sit­u­a­tion after aggres­sive­ly over the top polic­ing had cre­at­ed ten­sion. There were riot police crouch­ing behind the hedgerow. It was very scary, par­tic­u­lar­ly as there were chil­dren on site”.

“I am a cli­mate activist because I am a moth­er and I want to ensure that my chil­dren have a half-way decent future — that’s why I see it as my duty to oppose acts of envi­ron­men­tal luna­cy, like air­port expan­sion. I thought that the riot police were try­ing to shut down the cli­mate camp, and I did­n’t think that that was right or fair. The tri­al has been hang­ing over me for sev­er­al months, and it is a huge relief that my action has been vin­di­cat­ed by the judge.”

CLIMATE ACTION NEWS SHEET 75, JANUARY 2008

CONTENTS:

———————————————-
UPCOMING ACTIONS AND EVENTS:
———————————————-
1) FOSSIL FOOLS DAY — NATIONAL, 1.4.08
2) LONDON RISING TIDE BENEFIT — LONDON, 11.1.08

CONTENTS:

———————————————-
UPCOMING ACTIONS AND EVENTS:
———————————————-
1) FOSSIL FOOLS DAY — NATIONAL, 1.4.08
2) LONDON RISING TIDE BENEFIT — LONDON, 11.1.08
3) NEWQUAY AIRPORT EXPANSION, PUBLIC DEBATE — CORNWALL, 12.1.08
4) RADICAL ACTION VS. CLIMATE CHAOS, NATIONAL MEET — NOTTINGHAM, 12.1.08
5) CLIMATE CAMP NATIONAL GATHERING — LEEDS, 26–27.1.08
6) BIOFUELWATCH WEEK OF ACTION — NATIONAL, 26.1.08 — 1.2.08
7) MANCHESTER CLIMATE FORUM — 1.3.08
8) DAY OF ACTION VS. GLOBAL AGRIBUSINESS — INTERNATIONAL, 26.1.08
9) LOW-IMPACT SMALLHOLDING — BUCKS, 11–13.1.08
———————————————-
RECENT HAPPENINGS:
———————————————-
1) NEWQUAY AIRPORT ROOFTOP OCCUPATION — 15.12.07
2) SANTAS AGAINST EXCESSIVE CONSUMPTION — NORWICH & LONDON, 15.12.07
3) BRISTOL RISING TIDE TAKES ACTION VS. SHELL GREENWASH — DECEMBER 2007
4) SHELL TO SEA SCALE GOVERNMENT OFFICE — IRELAND, 19.12.07
5) NATIONAL CLIMATE CHANGE MARCH AND ACTIONS — 8.12.07
6) DUTCH COAL ACTION — 8.12.07
7) FLIGHT CENTRES SHUT FOR BUSINESS — MANCHESTER, 7.12.07
8) CHEADLE-HIGH-STREET AGAINST CLIMATE CHANGE — DECEMBER 2007
9) SUBVERTISEMENTS IN LONDON AND MANCHESTER — DECEMBER 2007
10) WOMEN’S BLOCKADE OF DEPARTMENT FOR TRANSPORT — 7.12.07
11) THE TIDE IS RISING! — 7.12.07
12) CLIMATE ACTIVISTS STOP WORK AT COAL MINE — SOUTH WALES, 5.12.07
13) INTERNATIONAL RT HOAX TARGETS BIG CARBON — 3.12.07
14) HOMELESS POLAR BEARS IN COURT — BRISTOL, 14.11.07
15) KEEP OIL UNDERGROUND — DECEMBER 2007
16) SIZEWELL NUCLEAR CLIMATE ACTION — 1.12.07
17) MANIAC MOTORIST MARS MASS — GLASGOW, NOVEMBER 2007
18) VIVA’S ‘HOT!’ CAMPAIGN — DECEMBER 2007
19) WHAT BETTER TIME? — DECEMBER 2007
20) BATH BOMB, ISSUE 5 — DECEMBER 2007
21) PACIFIC CURRENTS — DECEMBER 2007
22) A HOUSE OF CARDS — DECEMBER 2007
23) SOUTH WEST AIR ACTION — DECEMBER 2007
24) RISING TIDE LEAMINGTON SPA — DECEMBER 2007
25) RISING TIDE ON YOU TUBE

———————————————-
UPCOMING ACTIONS AND EVENTS:
———————————————-
1) FOSSIL FOOLS DAY — NATIONAL, 1.4.08
Just three months to go — are you out prac­tis­ing your rou­tines? rehears­ing your songs? build­ing your props yet? I should get out more over Christ­mas…
How­ev­er, it will soon be time to hatch your mis­chie­vous scheme, so get your friends round and start plot­ting!
http://www.fossilfoolsday.org/

2) LONDON RISING TIDE BENEFIT — LONDON, 11.1.08
In sup­port of Lon­don Ris­ing Tide, AMP is organ­is­ing a night of live music at The Oth­ers, Manor Road, Stoke New­ing­ton. Entrance £5.
http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=38074566

3) NEWQUAY AIRPORT EXPANSION, PUBLIC DEBATE — CORNWALL, 12.1.08
Organ­ised by Ris­ing Tide with speak­ers from Groundswell and Plane Stu­pid.
7pm St. Maw­gan Com­mu­ni­ty Hall, Nr. Newquay, Corn­wall. For more info. email; kernow@risingtide.org.uk

4) RADICAL ACTION VS. CLIMATE CHAOS, NATIONAL MEET — NOTTINGHAM, 12.1.08
11am — 6pm at The Sumac Cen­tre, 245 Glad­stone Street, For­est Fields, Not­ting­ham.
This meet­ing came out of the last Cli­mate Camp gath­er­ing in Novem­ber. It is focussed on grow­ing our move­ment — how can we encour­age more groups to form and more actions/campaigns to hap­pen? What things do we want to do to help build a vibrant net­work of region­al action groups doing actions local­ly and nation­al­ly?
For instruc­tion on how to get there: http://www.veggies.org.uk/sumac/map.html
Also, 11 peo­ple are going to tri­al in Not­ting­ham on Mon­day 14th for ‘shut­ting down’ the local coal pow­er sta­tion, If any­one wants to stay to sup­port them that would be great!

5) CLIMATE CAMP NATIONAL GATHERING — LEEDS, 26–27.1.08
The Cli­mate Camp on its own did­n’t stop cli­mate change — but it’s part of a grow­ing social move­ment that can! Come and take the next steps for­ward at the upcom­ing UK-wide meet­ing on Jan 26–27 in Leeds. Every­one is wel­come, whether you came to the camp, or were sim­ply inspired by it.
http://www.climatecamp.org.uk/nextmeeting.php

6) BIOFUELWATCH WEEK OF ACTION — NATIONAL, 26.1.08 — 1.2.08
Bio­fu­el­watch are call­ing for a nation­al week of local action on agro­fu­els between 26th Jan­u­ary and 1st Feb­ru­ary 2008. We will short­ly update our web­site to pro­vide more back­ground infor­ma­tion about the UK agro­fu­el indus­try and poli­cies, as well as a draft leaflet and oth­er resources. If you would like to get involved or find out more, please email us at info[at]biofuelwatch.org.uk.
http://biofuelwatch.org.uk/

7) MANCHESTER CLIMATE FORUM — 1.3.08
Man­ches­ter Cli­mate Forum “Cli­mate Change: it’s time to pre­pare”
9.15am at the Methodist Hall, Old­ham St, Cen­tral Man­ches­ter
http://www.manchesterclimateforum.org.uk/index.html

8) DAY OF ACTION VS. GLOBAL AGRIBUSINESS — INTERNATIONAL, 26.1.08
On Jan­u­ary 26 self-orga­nized groups from all around the world will take cre­ative action in their com­mu­ni­ty. This will man­i­fest in many ways, from non­vi­o­lent direct action, civ­il dis­obe­di­ence, street the­atre, con­ver­gences, teach-ins and oth­er activ­i­ties and events. Grass­roots move­ments around the world are mak­ing their voic­es heard and say­ing “Anoth­er World is Pos­si­ble”. In coor­di­na­tion with the World Social Forum.
http://www.risingtidenorthamerica.org/wordpress/category/front-page/

9) LOW-IMPACT SMALLHOLDING — BUCKS, 11–13.1.08
Next course by the Low-Impact Liv­ing Ini­tia­tive;
http://www.lowimpact.org/courseoutlinelowimpactsmallholding.htm

———————————————-
RECENT HAPPENINGS:
———————————————-
1) NEWQUAY AIRPORT ROOFTOP OCCUPATION — 15.12.07
For the recent­ly formed Ker­now and Ply­mouth Ris­ing Tide groups, this action marked an esca­la­tion in their fight against cli­mate change and for envi­ron­men­tal jus­tice. How­ev­er the planned rooftop protest at Newquay air­port was giv­en an unlike­ly boost when builders at the air­port left a lad­der propped up!
http://risingtide.org.uk/node/248
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/cornwall/7146159.stm

2) SANTAS AGAINST EXCESSIVE CONSUMPTION — NORWICH AND LONDON, 15.12.07
Sub­ver­sive Singing San­tas Spread Sea­son­al San­i­ty in Lon­don and Nor­wich On one of the busiest shop­ping days of the year. Ris­ing Tide activists in both Lon­don and Nor­wich dressed up as San­tas Against Exces­sive Con­sump­tion and hit the high streets to sing a dif­fer­ent tune to the usu­al buy, buy,
buy mad­ness of the hol­i­day sea­son.
http://risingtide.org.uk/node/247

3) BRISTOL RISING TIDE TAKES ACTION VS. SHELL GREENWASH — DECEMBER 2007
A series of actions is being tak­en against the organ­is­ers of the Wildlife Pho­tog­ra­ph­er of the Year Award and Bris­tol Muse­um, in protest at the spon­sor­ship of the event by Shell. A grumpy polar bear vis­it­ed the offices of BBC Wildlife mag­a­zine, then activists dis­rupt­ed Bris­tol Muse­um’s posh recep­tion to kick off the exhi­bi­tion with a Yes Men-style inter­ven­tion. And on the open­ing morn­ing, dozens of humans, polar bears, a snow leop­ard and a tiger gath­ered (com­plete with the Shell’s Wild Lie counter-exhi­bi­tion) in front of the muse­um. They hand­ed out leaflets and cre­at­ed quite a spec­ta­cle. Protests are expect­ed to con­tin­ue through Jan. 13th.
http://risingtide.org.uk/bristol

4) SHELL TO SEA SCALE GOVERNMENT OFFICE — IRELAND, 19.12.07
A spe­cial prayer and car­ol ser­vice was held on 16th Decem­ber at Bel­lan­aboy, Coun­ty Mayo, mark­ing the end of anoth­er year of com­mu­ni­ty strug­gle against Shel­l’s pro­posed raw gas pipeline and inland refin­ery.
On the 19th, a small group of Shell to Sea activists scaled the heights of the Depart­ment of Nat­ur­al Resources to place a ban­ner read­ing PROTECT IRISH NATURAL RESOURCES on the bal­cony out­side Eamon Ryan’s office.
http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/17942
http://www.corribsos.com/

5) NATIONAL CLIMATE CHANGE MARCH AND ACTIONS — 8.12.07
Over 10,000 cli­mate cam­paign­ers took to the streets to take part in march­es in Lon­don and Glas­gow over the week­end, despite pour­ing rain. Pro­test­ers braved the weath­er in one the biggest demon­stra­tions call­ing for cli­mate jus­tice the UK has ever seen.
http://www.campaigncc.org/
http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2007/12/387497.html
Envi­ron­men­tal activists from direct action group Plane Stu­pid shut down trav­el agents and air­line offices along the route of the Cli­mate March in Lon­don.
http://www.planestupid.com/
Mean­while, in Man­ches­ter air­line bill­boards adver­tis­ing cheap flights to Euro­pean cities were sub­vert­ed.

6) DUTCH COAL ACTION — 8.12.07
A col­lec­tive of twen­ty Dutch Earth­First! activists blocked the coal con­vey­or- belt to a plant owned by the Ger­man ener­gy giant E.on on the Maasvlak­te near Rot­ter­dam.
http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/17893

7) FLIGHT CENTRES SHUT FOR BUSINESS — MANCHESTER, 7.12.07
All Flight Cen­tre branch­es in Man­ches­ter city cen­tre were super-glued shut in time for Sat­ur­day trad­ing and to coin­cide with the cli­mate march in Lon­don. They were past­ed with notices say­ing: “Closed — we want your kids to have a plan­et” The UK’s only Hum­mer deal­er­ship, Bauer Mil­lett, was also D‑locked shut.
http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/17887

8) CHEADLE-HIGH-STREET AGAINST CLIMATE CHANGE — DECEMBER 2007
Activists from Chea­dle-High-Street Against Cli­mate Change held a “A plan­et is not just for Xmas” cam­paign for a sus­tain­able Xmas.
http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/17917

9) SUBVERTISEMENTS IN LONDON AND MANCHESTER — DECEMBER 2007
Two adverts pro­mot­ing DVD’s by Top Gear’s Jere­my Clark­son now have large stick­ers stuck on declar­ing “This caus­es cli­mate change”. Also, Fly­Be appears to have spot­ted the errors of their ways and can­celled their short-haul sum­mer routes. Bra­vo Fly­Be!
http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/17937

10) WOMEN’S BLOCKADE OF DEPARTMENT FOR TRANSPORT — 7.12.07
Women cli­mate activists block­ad­ed the Depart­ment for Trans­port pre­vent­ing staff from get­ting to work and car­ry­ing out their poli­cies which are cat­a­pult­ing us towards dan­ger­ous run-away cli­mate change. This action comes in response to the Trans­port Sec­re­tary Ruth Kel­ly con­firm­ing the gov­ern­men­t’s inten­tions to build a third run­way and a sixth ter­mi­nal at Heathrow and coin­cides with the open­ing of their first “con­sul­ta­tion”.
http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/17883

11) THE TIDE IS RISING! — 7.12.07
A ban­ner with this warning/statement was dropped to wel­come all those enter­ing the city of Man­ches­ter on the Princess park­way.
http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/17886

12) CLIMATE ACTIVISTS STOP WORK AT COAL MINE — SOUTH WALES, 5.12.07
More than thir­ty cli­mate activists, includ­ing mem­bers of the Ris­ing Tide net­work, joined with local res­i­dents from Merthyr Tyd­fil in stop­ping exca­va­tion work for a full day on Britain’s biggest ever open-cast coal mine at Ffos-y-fran in South Wales. Activists evad­ed police and secu­ri­ty before tak­ing over the 1,000 acre site on a hill­top near Cardiff. Dressed as clowns and polar bears, they chained them­selves to bull­doz­ers and oth­er heavy machin­ery to pre­vent work on the mine.
http://risingtide.org.uk/node/242

13) INTERNATIONAL RT HOAX TARGETS BIG CARBON — 3.12.07
Cli­mate activists with the inter­na­tion­al Ris­ing Tide net­work embar­rassed the U.S. Cli­mate Action Part­ner­ship (USCAP), a lob­by group com­posed of 33 promi­nent busi­ness­es and orga­ni­za­tions, by dis­trib­ut­ing a spoof press release declar­ing that the consortium’s mem­bers had com­mit­ted to a 90
per­cent reduc­tion in their green­house gas emis­sions by 2050. In addi­tion, the spoof release called for an imme­di­ate mora­to­ri­um on the con­struc­tion of all new coal-fired pow­er plants.
http://risingtide.org.uk/node/240
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2007/dec/03/oil.bp

14) HOMELESS POLAR BEARS IN COURT — BRISTOL, 14.11.07
Four home­less polar bears appeared before Bris­tol Mag­is­trates Court on 14th Novem­ber. They were arrest­ed after blockad­ing the Roy­al Bank of Scot­land cor­po­rate offices on Avon St. dur­ing the Ris­ing Tide nation­al day of action. After plead­ing guilty to charges of “wil­ful­ly obstruct­ing the pub­lic high­way with a non motor vehi­cle” (i.e. a suit case) they were giv­en a con­di­tion­al dis­charge and went on to pick­et the RBS branch on Bald­win Street!
http://risingtide.org.uk/node/243

15) KEEP OIL UNDERGROUND — DECEMBER 2007
The only way to fight cli­mate change. A new report by Oil­Watch.
http://www.oilwatch.org/doc/documentos/Keep_oil_underground.pdf
http://www.oilwatch.org/

16) SIZEWELL NUCLEAR CLIMATE ACTION — 1.12.07
What else would you do at this time in the morn­ing at a nuclear pow­er sta­tion, oth­er than lay on the road, lock your­selves togeth­er, unfurl your ban­ner read­ing “nuclear pow­er is not the answer to cli­mate chaos” and wait 15 min­utes for the secu­ri­ty to notice you.
http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/17868

17) MANIAC MOTORIST MARS MASS — GLASGOW, NOVEMBER 2007
Unbur­dened with fes­tive spir­it, a mid­dle-aged woman leant out of her car and pulled a cyclist off his bike.
http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/17889

18) VIVA’S ‘HOT!’ CAMPAIGN — DECEMBER 2007
“Livestock’s con­tri­bu­tion to envi­ron­men­tal prob­lems is on a mas­sive scale. The impact is so sig­nif­i­cant that it needs to be addressed with urgency.” Unit­ed Nations Food and Agri­cul­ture Organ­i­sa­tion 2006
find out more at
http://www.viva.org.uk/campaigns/hot/index.php

19) WHAT BETTER TIME? — DECEMBER 2007
A free news sheet from the Scot­tish Cli­mate Activist Net­work.
http://whatbettertime.livejournal.com/

20) BATH BOMB, ISSUE 5 — DECEMBER 2007
Christ­mas edi­tion of the month­ly Bathon­ian rab­bler­ousi­ness.
http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/17905

21) PACIFIC CURRENTS — DECEMBER 2007
For updates on the work of Pacif­ic Envi­ron­ment, a non-prof­it organ­i­sa­tion that pro­tects the Pacif­ic Rim’s wild places and wildlife, see;
http://www.pacificenvironment.org/article.php?id=2658

22) A HOUSE OF CARDS — DECEMBER 2007
From fan­ta­sy finance to glob­al crash.
Your guide to under­stand­ing the cri­sis that is sweep­ing through the glob­al finan­cial sys­tem and what it means for ordi­nary peo­ple.
Endorsed by Kevin Smith of Car­bon Trade Watch and film­mak­er Ken Loach.
http://www.aworldtowin.net/about/HouseOfCards.html

23) SOUTH WEST AIR ACTION — DECEMBER 2007
A new web­site.
http://www.swairaction.org.uk/

24) RISING TIDE LEAMINGTON SPA is born — DECEMBER 2007
The group had its first meet­ing on 3rd Jan­u­ary and is now swing­ing into action. If you live in the area and want to find out more or get involved con­tact becqke@riseup.net

25) RISING TIDE ON YOU TUBE
Ris­ing Tide action footage has been spring­ing up all over youtube — check out http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=RisingTideNetwork for some RT films, some of the lat­est actions and links to oth­er’s videos of RT actions.

———-

Please send any­thing you’d like includ­ed in this news sheet to:
newssheet@risingtide.org.uk

To view pre­vi­ous edi­tions of the Ris­ing Tide News Sheet, vis­it the News Sheet Archive at http://risingtide.org.uk/newssheet

This News Sheet was brought to you by Ris­ing Tide, a grass­roots net­work of groups and indi­vid­u­als com­mit­ted to tak­ing action and build­ing a move­ment against cli­mate change.

For more infor­ma­tion…
email: info@risingtide.org.uk
Phone: +44 (0)845 458 8923 / +44 (0)7708 794665
Address: 62 Fieldgate St, Lon­don, E1 1ES
Web site: http://risingtide.org.uk

PLEASE FORWARD THIS TO A FRIEND AND INVITE THEM TO JOIN THE LIST

To sub­scribe or unsub­scribe vis­it:
http://risingtide.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/rt-news

END

York & Ainsty South Hunt Sabbed — Hunt Slash Tires Following Sab Success

26.12.2007
SABOTEURS FROM THE YORK HUNT SABS GROUP TODAY MONITORED THE YORK AND AINSTY SOUTH HUNT, SAVING LIVES AND CONFRONTING THEIR ILLEGAL ACTIONS

York & Ainsty South Hunt26.12.2007
SABOTEURS FROM THE YORK HUNT SABS GROUP TODAY MONITORED THE YORK AND AINSTY SOUTH HUNT, SAVING LIVES AND CONFRONTING THEIR ILLEGAL ACTIONS

York & Ain­sty South Hunt today met in Eas­ing­wold Mar­ket Square for their annu­al PR stunt and Box­ing Day Hunt. The Mas­ter put on a show whilst doing a speech, try­ing to act wel­com­ing to the “antis” and rant­ed how they should be tol­er­at­ed as the hunt always wel­comes oppos­ing views. Whilst he was busy talk­ing to the sup­port­ers, hunt sabs fed the hounds dog bis­cuits to make them more respon­sive to mon­i­tors in the field and laid a non-harm­ful cit­ronel­la scent which stops them smelling fox­es. The two police offi­cers present had already told peo­ple they would­n’t be fol­low­ing the Y&AS to enforce the ban.

As they set off, to a slow start, the mas­ter became very intol­er­ant and raised his whip to hit a sab as more cit­ronel­la was laid in front of the hounds — fun­ny how their atti­tude changes when there’s no pub­lic round.

About an hour in, the hunt begun flush­ing cov­ers with a full pack of hounds — some­thing which is ille­gal under the hunt­ing bill — and there was no drag any­where in the area, nor seen through­out the day. As hounds went into cry, sabs were on the oth­er­side of the cov­er ready to get between the fox and hunt pack when they broke cov­er and went into chase. Fol­low­ing this, sabs made howls (a noise made by fol­low­ers if a fox is seen) to dis­tract the hunt mas­ter who was unaware of the sabs on the oth­er­side. He then began ral­ly­ing the hounds towards the direc­tion of the noise and encour­ag­ing them, only to be caught on video cam­era by the mon­i­tors when he, and the full pack of hounds, broke cov­er. Fox bur­rows in the woods were filled in — some­thing done the morn­ing of the hunt so no chased ani­mals can get down the holes — this makes them eas­i­er to find, chase and kill as they have nowhere to hide. After this, the mas­ter (who coin­ci­den­tal­ly claimed to be legal­ly hunt­ing in his ear­li­er speech!) was asked about the ban and points of law were put to him as he was being filmed; his reply — a mid­dle fin­ger and mut­ter­ing of “Fuck Off”. This was then changed to point­ing and say­ing he’ll speak lat­er when he realised he was being filmed.

They then moved onto anoth­er, big­ger cov­er and did the same but chased a fox. Due to sabs’ inter­ven­tion and lay­ing of cit­ronel­la, two chased roe deer and fox­es escaped from the hounds. Due to the cov­er­ing of the scent by mon­i­tors, the pack was con­fused and the hunt moved on to try and avoid being filmed break­ing the law. The land own­er then came to escort sabs out of the cov­er and was con­front­ed about his allowance of an ille­gal activ­i­ty occur­ring on his land; unable to answer he began rant­i­ng on about tres­pass and tried grab­bing the video cam­eras.

Lat­er on as the Y&AS head­ed back towards Eas­ing­wold to pack up, hunt sup­port­ers slashed two tires on the land rover used by sabs — obvi­ous­ly in envy of their days lack of suc­cess and sabs dis­rupt­ing their ille­gal hunt.

THE YORK AND AINSTY SOUTH, LIKE MANY OTHER HUNTS, ARE CLAIMING IN THE PRESS THEY CONTINUE TO HUNT WITHIN THE LAW. THIS IS NOW EXPOSED AS A LIE. WE WILL CONTINUE TO MONITOR HUNTS WITHIN THE AREA AND INTERVENE, SAVE LIES AND ENFORCE THE LAW.

YORK HUNT SABS

http://www.huntsabs.org.uk

National Squatters Meeting 9–10 February 2008 Leeds

So we are invit­ing peo­ple involved in all squat­ted autonomous spaces around the UK to meet and dis­cuss the squat­ting sit­u­a­tion and some prepa­ra­tion for the days of action in April.

Squat action days flierSo we are invit­ing peo­ple involved in all squat­ted autonomous spaces around the UK to meet and dis­cuss the squat­ting sit­u­a­tion and some prepa­ra­tion for the days of action in April.

So we are invit­ing peo­ple involved in all squat­ted autonomous spaces around the UK to meet and dis­cuss the squat­ting sit­u­a­tion and some prepa­ra­tion for the days of action in April. The idea for this meet­ing is inspired by the recent inter­na­tion­al meet­ing in Dijon.

Some of the ideas of what could be dis­cussed at this meet­ing are…
• Build­ing a stronger net­work between the squats/Autonomous spaces through­out the UK.
• Ini­tial plan­ning for the days of action.
• The repres­sion and resis­tance fac­ing Autonomous spaces in the UK.
• How we can make bet­ter use of Autonomous spaces in terms of con­nect­ing them to issues such as increased sur­veil­lance, hous­ing prob­lems, gen­tri­fi­ca­tion and the fun­da­men­tal issue of who owns and con­trols our land, space and lives.
• The impact of non squat­ted Autonomous spaces on the squat­ting move­ment.
• Break­ing out of the “squat­ting scene”.
• The impact of drugs on the move­ment.

This is just some ideas of what could come out of this meet­ing, obvi­ous­ly there is no set agen­da as this is decen­tral­ized so we want to make a col­lec­tive deci­sion about what will be dis­cussed at the start of the meet­ing.
We feel this could be a real­ly pos­i­tive week­end; we’d like to see loads of you there. We’ve cho­sen Leeds as a loca­tion even though not all of us live there, because although it might not feel like it to you down south but it’s a cen­tral loca­tion on this island!
Please get in touch if you’re gonna come along, our e‑mail is below. It is impor­tant for us to know how many peo­ple to expect. Please also get in touch if you want help set up or get involved in any oth­er way… Hope to see you all in Feb­ru­ary….

Squat Net­work
squatmeetup@googlemail.com

Fossil Fools Day, April 1st 2008

Ris­ing Tide Inter­na­tion­al is call­ing for a day of action against the fos­sil fuel indus­try on April 1st 2008…

Fossil Fools Day advance flierRis­ing Tide Inter­na­tion­al is call­ing for a day of action against the fos­sil fuel indus­try on April 1st 2008…
FOSSIL FOOLS DAY!

Roll up, roll up! The cli­mate cir­cus is in town. Cli­mate change threat­ens our very sur­vival, but the fools at the head of the fos­sil fuel empire con­tin­ue to plun­der the earth, with gov­ern­ments the will­ing court jesters at their side.

They would have us believe that we can escape cli­mate change with tech­no-fix­es, mar­ket mech­a­nisms and off­set schemes – all tech­no­crat­ic acro­bat­ics that dis­tract us from the truth: the only real solu­tion to cli­mate change is to keep fos­sil fuels in the ground.

For over a cen­tu­ry the fos­sil fuel indus­try has been fool­ing with our lives. From extrac­tion to com­bus­tion they have poi­soned our air, pol­lut­ed our water and ruined our cli­mate. On April 1st, 2008, we’re going to turn the tables and show them who the real fools are.

Find a local fos­sil fool – the coal-min­ing clown, the off­set con­tor­tion­ist, the avi­a­tor trip­ping on the high wire, the super­mar­ket food mile freak show, the oily strong man, or any oth­er fool that deserves your atten­tion – and join with thou­sands around the world in tak­ing one step clos­er to dis­man­tling the fos­sil fuel indus­try.

On Fos­sil Fools Day, bring the spir­it of car­ni­val and mis­chief to the fight for cli­mate jus­tice.

www.fossilfoolsday.org
www.risingtide.org.uk

(More info and resources com­ing soon… for now, put the date in your diary, spread the call-out above far and wide, and start schem­ing!)

Totally Immoral — A Day of Action against Total Oil

The Total out of Bur­ma Day of Action took place on Sat­ur­day 24 Novem­ber. Protests were held at 36 Total petrol sta­tions across the UK. Some sta­tions were block­ad­ed and all the protests received great sup­port from the motor­ing and pedes­tri­an pub­lic.

The Total out of Bur­ma Day of Action took place on Sat­ur­day 24 Novem­ber. Protests were held at 36 Total petrol sta­tions across the UK. Some sta­tions were block­ad­ed and all the protests received great sup­port from the motor­ing and pedes­tri­an pub­lic.

On Sat­ur­day 24 Novem­ber, protests were held at 36 Total petrol sta­tions across the UK. The protests called upon Total Oil to pull out of Bur­ma and stop financ­ing the Burmese mil­i­tary regime. Protest loca­tions includ­ed Brad­ford, Brighton, Chatham (Kent), Cardiff, Guernsey, Lon­don, Man­ches­ter, Oxford and Vir­gina Water (Sur­rey).

Block­ades occurred at some sta­tions, with sev­er­al last­ing for an hour or more. In Cam­den, Lon­don 10 pro­tes­tors blocked the York Way Total sta­tion for an hour, while 15 stu­dents in Sur­rey block­ad­ed the Vir­ginia Water petrol sta­tion for more than 2 hours. Through­out the UK the protests received sup­port from motorists and pedes­tri­ans alike. Many dri­vers turned away from the petrol sta­tions upon see­ing the protests, some inform­ing pro­tes­tors that they would not to buy from Total again. At all the tar­get­ted petrol sta­tions busi­ness was notice­ably slow, and in some cas­es vir­tu­al­ly non-exis­tent, dur­ing the protests.

Paul Gold­ing, one of the pro­tes­tors, said, “Total’s invest­ment in Bur­ma is the largest in Europe. By pay­ing mil­lions of dol­lars to the Burmese dic­ta­tor­ship every year they are help­ing keep it in pow­er. If the West wants to help end the oppres­sion and ongo­ing human rights abus­es in Bur­ma, then quite sim­ply, we must stop our com­pa­nies from fund­ing the oppres­sors.”

In Lon­don, protests took place at 14 Total petrol sta­tions dur­ing the course of the day. The final protest in Lon­don attract­ed over 30 sup­port­ers and took place at the Bak­er Street petrol sta­tion on Maryle­bone Rd, NW1, from 4pm to 6pm. In Guernsey, cam­paign­ers protest­ed at all 14 Total sta­tions on the island, and pick­et­ed the main sta­tion on the island for 3 hours. [2]

The day of action was part of a grow­ing glob­al cam­paign call­ing on French oil com­pa­ny Total to stop fund­ing the Burmese jun­ta:

- Boy­cott: Last week, the glob­al inter­net advo­ca­cy web­site Avaaz.org launched a glob­al boy­cott of Total, as well as US oil com­pa­ny Chevron, for their pres­ence in Bur­ma – with near­ly 50,000 sign­ing up in ten days [3].
— Divest­ment: Euro­pean pen­sion funds with­drew almost £110m in invest­ments from Total in a mat­ter of days in protest at the com­pa­ny’s involve­ment in Bur­ma. [4]
— Pop­u­lar protests: Since Octo­ber week­ly protests have tak­en place in Lon­don out­side Total Oil’s offices. Oth­er spon­ta­neous protests have occurred out­side Total garages around the UK. [5]

Pho­tos are avail­able from http://www.flickr.com/photos/toastyoneuk

For more infor­ma­tion & pho­tos con­tact:
— Jonathan Steven­son on 07818 651124, jjjstevenson@fastmail.fm
— Paul Gold­ing on 07984 799 958 or paul@pellarin.demon.co.uk

NOTES FOR EDITORS:

[1] Total Oil has had a joint busi­ness ven­ture with the Burmese gov­ern­ment since 1992. Its major project is the Yadana gas project in south­ern Bur­ma, which earns the mil­i­tary regime hun­dreds of mil­lions of dol­lars every year. Aung San Suu Kyi, Burma’s democ­ra­cy leader, has said that “Total is the biggest sup­port­er of the mil­i­tary regime in Bur­ma.” For more infor­ma­tion about Total Oil’s invest­ment in Bur­ma see the Bur­ma Cam­paign UK web­site: http://www.burmacampaign.org.uk/total.php.

[2] A full list of protests on 24 Novem­ber, plus fur­ther infor­ma­tion about the cam­paign, can be found at: http://totaloutofburma.blogspot.com.

[3] See http://www.avaaz.org/en/burma_corporate/. Total’s prod­ucts in the UK include its net­work of petrol sta­tions, as well as such brands as Bostik (mak­ers of Blu-tack) and Spon­tex clean­ing prod­ucts.

[4] See http://observer.guardian.co.uk/business/story/0„2204744,00.html

[5] For reports, see http://totaloutofburma.blogspot.com

Buy Nothing Day reports — Leeds, Norwich, London, Edinburgh, Manchester x2…

The truth is out — buy­ing stuff does­n’t make you hap­py! Cen­tral Leeds today saw a free shop sprout from the pave­ment to dri­ve the mes­sage home.


The truth is out — buy­ing stuff does­n’t make you hap­py! Cen­tral Leeds today saw a free shop sprout from the pave­ment to dri­ve the mes­sage home.

Despite the cold and rain, a hardy group set up a free shop in Cen­tral Leeds this morn­ing, offer­ing burg­ers, books, records and clothes. The man­i­fes­ta­tion of peo­ple giv­ing stuff away in the mid­dle of con­sumer-land raised a few eye­brows, enter­tained the tired mass­es and got the idea across that buy­ing loads of use­less stuff is a futile activ­i­ty. The assem­bled free-shop­pers sang a vari­ety of sub­ver­tised car­ols and hand­ed out gift vouch­ers which were “redeemable for what­ev­er takes your fan­cy” includ­ing a pic­nic in the park or play­ing your own music. All in all, a grand day out in town.

—–

BNDNorwich
To mark Buy Noth­ing Day, 12 peo­ple from Nor­wich Ris­ing Tide held a Rat Race in the city cen­tre.

Activists cre­at­ed a mobile rat race that stopped off at the city’s busiest malls and high streets.

Peo­ple in rat cos­tumes hur­ried hith­er and thith­er between the edges of the rat race maze, built out of plac­ards read­ing Work Hard­er, Earn More Mon­ey, Buy More Things, Keep Going, while Fat Cats advised that hap­pi­ness was just around the cor­ner if the rats would only keep shop­ping!

At Cas­tle Mall the rats were flum­moxed by secu­ri­ty guards who forced them to move on; after all, the rats were only telling peo­ple to buy more stuff!

A thou­sand leaflets were hand­ed out (see below), and many passers-by expressed their sup­port.
BND Norwich flier front
BND Norwich flier back

—–

It seems that Trans­port For Lon­don have bowed to activist pres­sure and decid­ed to remove all the adverts from the dis­trict line.

I nev­er would have thought that TFL would have tak­en part in buy noth­ing day, but it seems even Red Ken want­ed to join in the fun.

A group of Space Hijack­er agents were trav­el­ling across Lon­don when we spot­ted a TFL dec­o­ra­tion team, swift­ly turn­ing all of the adverts on the Dis­trict Line around so that their blank sides were fac­ing out.
Ad-free Tube action
They then post­ed up offi­cial Lon­dON stick­ers pro­claim­ing:

“As part of TFL’s £10 Bil­lion invest­ment pro­gram, Lon­don Under­ground are remov­ing all adverts from trains to improve the ambi­ence of car­riages and the over­all trav­el­ling expe­ri­ence of pas­sen­gers.”
Ad-free Tube poster
We can only applaud this bold move against the con­stant cor­po­rate assault on our sens­es.

The team we saw doing it were very quick, man­ag­ing to swap around entire car­riages of adverts in less than the time it took the train to trav­el one stop. Infact so impressed were our agents that we kept an eye on the trains and spot­ted the advert free car­riages sev­er­al days after.

On the trains we over­heard one of the pas­sen­gers ask­ing “but what are we going to read?”, the TFL spokesper­son replied “You could try talk­ing to each oth­er?”

Three cheers for TFL 😉

–

Half-price agents80’s slo­gan t‑shirts are back in fash­ion! A group of Space Hijack­er agents decid­ed to wear the very lat­ests trend set­ting t‑shirts on a ‘Buy Noth­ing Day’ jaunt around Lon­don.

A team of Space Hijack­ers secret agents head­ed into Knights­bridge in Lon­don on Sat­ur­day to cel­e­brate Buy Noth­ing Day, a day of cor­po­rate chain­store chaos.

Wear­ing the very lat­est ‘Nu Rave’ slo­gan t‑shirts our intre­pid agents decid­ed to go and have a look around some of Lon­don’s most exclu­sive stores. Our first stop was Har­rords, and after avoid­ing the piles of fer­rar­i’s, porsches and mer­cedes, we man­aged to get instore and up to the top floor.

Our trendy “EVERYTHING IN STORE HALF PRICE TODAY” t‑shirts cer­tain­ly raised some eye­brows from the fash­ion con­scious cus­tomers, sev­er­al even came up and start­ed ask­ing us for direc­tions etc. Help­ful and polite as always we direct­ed cus­tomers, tidied up messy rails of clothes and gen­er­al­ly played the part of good mem­bers of soci­ety as we walked around the store.

Unfor­tu­nate­ly the secu­ri­ty teams seemed to have oth­er ideas, and promt­ly attempt­ed to round us up and eject us from the store! Cries of the fact that our shirts were the very lat­est kather­ine ham­nett design­er shirts, seemed to fall on deaf ears, and we were told that we may be arrest­ed if we entered the store again!

Oh well, nev­er mind, onto Guc­ci and Louis Vuit­ton for some design­er win­dow shop­ping. Enter­ing the Guc­ci bou­tique in Knights­brige we quick­ly found out that there were more of us than actu­al staff present, which was an enter­tain­ing prospect. How­ev­er, in a move which was obvi­ous­ly down to brand envy, we were once again eject­ed. The secu­ri­ty even fol­lowed us across the road and into Louis Vuit­ton call­ing out “Don’t let them in, it’s a prank!” as we entered the store. Why the cheek of it!

After look­ing around and help­ing cus­tomers choose their lug­gage we decid­ed to leave the store and wel­come peo­ple inside from the streets. How­ev­er the weath­er was get­ting rather nip­py by this point, so after a swift drink we decid­ed to head into Oxford Street and onto Nike Town and Top Shop.

The secu­ri­ty here was rather oafish to say the least, with three of our agents being dragged down to a spe­cial Top Shop instore prison which they have behind the coun­ters. Thank­ful­ly after threats of sue­ing for wrong­ful impris­on­ment, and the fact we had a lawyer and crim­i­nal bar­ris­ter amongst our ranks things were soon put right.

Unfor­tu­nate­ly after all of the excite­ment of deal­ing with the grumpy secu­ri­ty, we for­got to actu­al­ly buy any con­sumer goods. Oh well, best go back next year 😉

http://www.spacehijackers.org

—–
Buy Noth­ing Day — Edin­burgh Action

Today was Inter­na­tion­al Buy Noth­ing day. Activists took to the streets all across the globe to try and per­suade those who can afford to live con­sumerist lifestyles to think about how much they need all the things they buy.

In the run up to the Christ­mas shop-a-thon it is easy for many peo­ple to for­get that the best things in life are free. Do we real­ly need those things we buy? Is spend­ing mon­ey on use­less crap the only way to show loved ones how much we care for them? Of course not!
Edinburgh Buy Nothing Day 3

Clowns from Ram­pant Reekies, the Edin­burgh gag­gle of C.I.R.C.A, played games, danced and were gen­er­al­ly sil­ly on the streets, enter­tain­ing peo­ple with­out sell­ing prod­ucts. They also joy­ful­ly invad­ed shops, includ­ing HNM, GAP, BHS and Schu, and “brought mirth and mer­ri­ment to the dazed monot­o­ny of Christ­mas con­sump­tion.”
Edinburgh Buy Nothing Day 1

A Food Not Bombs stall gave out free food in the form of pea soup, banana smooth­ies, bread and apple pie. Many shop­pers walked straight past the hot-dog stall and had some love­ly veg­an soup for lunch instead. A chalk mes­sage on the pave­ment read “there is such a thing as a free lunch!”
Edinburgh Buy Nothing Day 2

A mobile Free Shop set up on the street to give things away for free. Many peo­ple came and found use­ful items to take away, or gifts for peo­ple which they were oth­er­wise going to buy. One man said sim­ple “this is the best thing I’ve ever seen” and a pass­ing woman exclaimed “I’ve seen jum­ble sales, but nev­er this!” A pass­ing Police Offi­cer even inquired if there was any mobile phones, as he was going to buy one that day but could­n’t now he knew it was Buy Noth­ing Day.

A per­son claim­ing to be from Soci­ety for a Trans­for­ma­tion to Imag­i­na­tion Not Cap­i­tal­i­sa­tion (S.T.I.N.C) approached the stalls and informed the BNDers that they had released non-harm­ful stink bombs in a fast-food stores on Princes Street to “make it clear — Cap­i­tal­ism stinks”, although this remains unver­i­fied.

The recep­tion from passers by was gen­er­al­ly quite good. While some did­n’t under­stand the point of it, many skep­tics came and had a chat a left with an under­stand­ing of what Buy Noth­ing Day is about, along with some free stuff. Hope­ful­ly some shop­pers will decide to make gifts for Christ­mas instead of pay­ing some­one else to.

Many involved real­ly enjoyed the day and felt that it was effec­tive, so look out for more Food Not Bombs activ­i­ty in Edin­burgh.

The For­est Cafe (www.theforest.org.uk) is hav­ing a week long Free Shop upstairs begin­ning on the 14th of Decem­ber.

—

On Sat­ur­day the 24th Novem­ber Rhythms of Resis­tance Man­ches­ter and Man­ches­ter Cli­mate Action (MCA) held a free stall where a wide range of things from plants, to clothes were well received. Even a cou­ple of police offi­cers joined in.

The two groups joined in the ‘Rein­state Karen’ demo which began in the Peace Gar­dens and marched through Man­ches­ter in sup­port of free speech and free health care.

Sev­er­al folks then went to the Arn­dale Cen­tre and released a ban­ner attached to pink heli­um bal­loons, which read: “Shop­ping Costs the Earth.” It float­ed up to the roof, right next to the giant Christ­mas Tree, to remind peo­ple of the social and envi­ron­men­tal expense of pur­chas­ing.

In the Traf­ford Cen­tre anoth­er activist from MCA dis­rupt­ed shop­ping, in protest at the mas­sive amount of car jour­neys it encour­ages in the name of prof­it.

For more info about free stuff and links check out www.freemanchester.orgShopping Costs the Earth

==

Activists from Man­ches­ter Cli­mate Action evac­u­at­ed var­i­ous parts of The Traf­ford Cen­tre dur­ing this years buy noth­ing day, Sat­ur­day 24th of Novem­ber. The sprawl­ing palace to point­less con­sumerism owned by the £2bn Empire of Peel Hold­ings, the cli­mate crim­i­nals who bought you such delights as Liv­er­pool, Durham Tees Val­ley, Robin Hood Don­cast­er Sheffield and Sheffield City Air­ports also pub­licly opposed the Man­ches­ter con­ges­tion charge. Cam­ou­flaged cova­lent cam­paign­ers in their finest design­er labels moved stealth­ily amongst the madding crowds whilst acti­vat­ing fire alarms and inter­rupt­ing the dai­ly toil of tedious trans­ac­tions.

Alarms in the main malls cov­er cer­tain zones and not the whole com­plex. They are silent for 30 sec­onds, sound­ing only in the secu­ri­ty office. This leads to lots of peo­ple in red jack­ets run­ning around look­ing con­cerned. When the alarms did sound it was accom­pa­nied by a mes­sage over the P.A telling peo­ple to ignore it and approach a mem­ber of staff if con­cerned. How­ev­er, sound­ing the Alarms by the exits of the large depart­ment stores such as Sel­f­ridges and John Lewis leads to the entire shop being evacuated……Oh dear!

TOTALitarian Oil Out of Burma — demos this week

This Sat­ur­day (24 Novem­ber) is the UK-wide “TOTAL Out of Bur­ma” Day of Action, sup­port­ed by Bur­ma Cam­paign UK.

Total 24 NovemberThis Sat­ur­day (24 Novem­ber) is the UK-wide “TOTAL Out of Bur­ma” Day of Action, sup­port­ed by Bur­ma Cam­paign UK.

There are 16 con­firmed protests, with sev­er­al more await­ing con­fir­ma­tion. It’s not too late to organ­ise your own protest. Or you can join one or more of the protests list­ed below. And in Lon­don there will be a protest finale at the Total sta­tion on Maryle­bone Road (near Bak­er Street tube) from 4pm til 6pm, after which there will be a par­ty. All are wel­come.

And don’t for­get our week­ly protests on Wednes­day and Thurs­day.

**This week only there will be an addi­tion­al protest on WEDNESDAY EVENING at WEMBLEY PARK TOTAL GARAGE, to coin­cide with the Eng­land v Croa­t­ia foot­ball match at Wem­b­ley Sta­di­um**.

————————–
UPCOMING PROTESTS

Wednes­day 21 Novem­ber
8.30am — 10.30am
Protest at Total Oil HQ, 33 Cavendish Square, Lon­don W1G 0PW
near­est tube: Oxford Cir­cus
map: http://tinyurl.com/2oardl

Wednes­day 21 Novem­ber
5.30pm — 7.30pm
Protest at Wem­b­ley Park Total petrol sta­tion, Bridge Road, Wem­b­ley, Lon­don
near­est tube: Wem­b­ley Park

Direc­tions: Turn right at the bot­tom of the steps out of Wem­b­ley Park tube (Met­ro­pol­i­tan line, 20 min­utes from Bak­er St) onto the main road (Bridge Road). The Total garage is high­ly vis­i­ble straight ahead, on the big traf­fic island oppo­site the retail park — 3 min­utes walk.

Thurs­day 22 Novem­ber
5.00pm — 7.00pm
Protest at Total petrol sta­tion, Dorset House, 170–172 Maryle­bone Rd, Lon­don NW1 5AR
near­est tube: Bak­er Street
map: http://tinyurl.com/2zg4qf

Sat­ur­day 24 Novem­ber
TOTAL OUT OF BURMA NATIONAL DAY OF ACTION

A day of action around the UK call­ing for Total Oil to stop fund­ing the Burmese mil­i­tary regime and pull out of Bur­ma. Protests are being organ­ised at petrol sta­tions around the UK. For an up-to-date list of protest loca­tions, con­tact details and details of how to organ­ise your own protest, go to
http://totaloutofburma.blogspot.com.

——————————————————–
1. Con­firmed protests on Sat 24 Nov
——————————————————–

BRADFORD
Vig­il against Total
5pm-7pm
meet at Cen­te­nary Square, Brad­ford

BRIGHTON
Kemp Town Total sta­tion
Meet at the Pavil­lion Bus Stop at 11.30am

GUERNSEY
Protests will be hap­pen­ing at Total sta­tions across the island.
con­tact: Kev on burma@landofkev.com or 07911 770 017

LONDON — Bak­er Street
4pm-6pm
Dorset House Total sta­tion, 170–172 Maryle­bone Rd, West­min­ster NW1 5AR
near­est tube: Bak­er Street
con­tact: totaloutofburma@gmail.com
(note: this is the final Lon­don protest of the day — all wel­come, with a par­ty to fol­low)

LONDON — Cam­den
from 11.30am
Cam­den Town Total sta­tion, 109–113 York Way, Isling­ton N7 9QE
near­est tube: Cale­don­ian Rd or Ken­tish Town
con­tact: Jonathan on jjjstevenson@fastmail.fm or 07818 651 124

LONDON — Chiswick
2pm-4pm
West Four Total station,137 Chiswick High Road, Chiswick W4 2ED
near­est tube: Turn­ham Green
con­tact: totaloutofburma@gmail.com

LONDON — Ham­mer­smith
11am-2pm
Raven Total sta­tion, 372 Gold­hawk Road, Ham­mer­smith W6 0XF
near­est tube: Stam­ford Brook
con­tact: totaloutofburma@gmail.com

LONDON — Ken­sal Green
1pm-3pm
Ken­sal Total sta­tion, 904 Har­row Rd, Ken­sal Green NW10 5JU
con­tact: Steph at fifth_state@yahoo.co.uk

LONDON — Kil­burn
12.30pm‑1.45pm
Kil­burn Total sta­tion, 409 Kil­burn High Rd, Kil­burn NW6 7QG
near­est tube: Kil­burn
con­tact: Dan at dvies­nik [at] yahoo.co.uk

LONDON — Manor Park
1pm- 3pm
Manor Park Total sta­tion, 893 Rom­ford Rd, East Ham E12 5JT
near­est tube: East Ham or (rail) Manor Park
con­tact: Paul on paul@riseup.net or 07939 975 085

LONDON — Newham
10.30am-12.30pm
High St North Total sta­tion, 409–419 High St North, Newham E12 6TL
near­est tube: East Ham
con­tact: Paul on paul@riseup.net or 07939 975 085

LONDON — South­wark
2pm-4pm
Thomas Beck­ett Total sta­tion, 233–247 Old Kent Road, South­wark SE1 5LU
near­est tube: Ele­phant & Cas­tle or Bor­ough
con­tact: Danae on papakura2000@hotmail.com or 07731 956 415

LONDON — Whitechapel
10am-12noon
Val­lance Total sta­tion, 112 Val­lance Rd, Tow­er Ham­lets E1 5BW
near­est tube: Whitechapel
con­tact: Danae on papakura2000@hotmail.com or 07731 956 415

LONDON — Willes­den
11am-12.15pm
Willes­den Lane Total sta­tion, 290 Willes­den Lane, Willes­den NW2 5HS
near­est tube: Willes­den Green
con­tact: Dan at dvies­nik [at] yahoo.co.uk

OXFORD
from 9.30am
Cow­ley Total sta­tion, 44 Gars­ing­ton Road, Cow­ley, Oxford OX4 2LG
con­tact: Den­nis at dhambridge@btinternet.com or 07804 433 602

ST ALBANS
meets out­side Bar­clays Bank, St Peters Street at 11am
mov­ing on to Total garage tbc at 12noon.
con­tact: totaloutofburma@gmail.com

——————————————————–
2. Protests to be con­firmed
——————————————————–

LONDON — Bermond­sey
LONDON — Haringey
LONDON — Peck­ham
LONDON — Waltham For­est
MANCHESTER
WREXHAM

If you inter­est­ed in attend­ing any of these protests please email totaloutofburma@gmail.com

——————————————————–
3. Details of how to get involved
——————————————————–

There are two ways to take part in the day of action:

1. Join a garage protest (see list above). You can get in touch with the con­tact list­ed or you can just turn up on the day and offer your sup­port. As protests are con­firmed we’ll add them to the blog: http://www.totaloutofburma.blogspot.com.

2. Organ­ise your own action — there are sev­er­al hun­dred TOTAL petrol sta­tions in the UK to choose from. Fol­low these three easy steps:

a. Find out where your local TOTAL garage is by using the handy Ser­vice Sta­tion Find­er at http://www.total.co.uk or check the google map of UK TOTAL garages being cre­at­ed at http://tinyurl.com/2ftvdf.

b. Get some sim­ple visu­al mate­ri­als togeth­er, plus some leaflets or peti­tions, and pub­li­cise it to your friends, con­tacts and local press. If you want the details list­ed pub­licly (e.g. by email and on the blog) email them to totaloutofburma@gmail.com or call Paul on 07939 975 085.

c. Hold the protest! Take some pic­tures, post a report on Indymedia.org.uk and send the link to totaloutofburma@gmail.com. Plus write to TOTAL’s head office telling them what you’ve been up to.

Basic plac­ard designs, peti­tions, leaflets and a mod­el press release are down­load­able from: http://www.totaloutofburma.blogspot.com.

————————–
For more infor­ma­tion go to:
http://www.burmacampaign.org.uk/total.html
http://totaloutofburma.blogspot.com
Join the face­book group: “Get Total Oil out of Bur­ma”

Fur­ther Infor­ma­tion
————————————-
Total out of Bur­ma blog
http://totaloutofburma.blogspot.com

Face­book group — Get Total Oil out of Bur­ma
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=6833508763

Bur­ma Cam­paign UK’s info on Total Oil
http://www.burmacampaign.org.uk/total.html

Thanks again for sup­port­ing the call to get Total Oil out of Bur­ma.