Category: Other

Oth­er

Bristol Cycle Circus 8th December

Join a colour­ful crit­i­cal mass of peo­ple and ped­dlers of all shapes and sizes and let our cycling cir­cus upstage and reveal Bris­tol’s cli­mate crim­i­nals.

Roll up Roll Up:

Call­ing all : bicy­cle trick­sters, bike pow­ered giz­mos, jug­glers, ban­ner mak­ers, poets, sto­ry­tellers, mobile musi­cians, per­form­ers.

Join a colour­ful crit­i­cal mass of peo­ple and ped­dlers of all shapes and sizes and let our cycling cir­cus upstage and reveal Bris­tol’s cli­mate crim­i­nals.

Roll up Roll Up:

Call­ing all : bicy­cle trick­sters, bike pow­ered giz­mos, jug­glers, ban­ner mak­ers, poets, sto­ry­tellers, mobile musi­cians, per­form­ers.

Lets bring the real­i­ty and caus­es of cli­mate change to our streets..

Meet: Col­lege Green, 1pm
8th Decem­ber

Inter­na­tion­al day of action on cli­mate change

We want to take cre­ative action on cli­mate chaos! We invite you to join us on our Cycle Cir­cus where togeth­er we will reveal the cli­mate crim­i­nals with their con­fi­dence tricks and green wash.

Our first stage will be The Roy­al Bank of Scot­land where last month saw 30 actions in the UK on this biggest investor of oil and gas projects, they haven’t gone away and nor have we.

The next stage is up to us all. Talk, share ideas, plan ‚pre­pare, turn up, trans­form!

Cli­mate change is the biggest issue of our time effect­ing every­one and most of all the poor. We can take back con­trol togeth­er, cre­ate the world we want to live in and have fun along the way! Lets take the stage of those who green wash our streets and our minds to make us think its all bet­ter. Pic­ture this, peo­ple tak­ing to the streets because enough is enough, no more exploita­tion! Our plan­et’s on the brink of eco­log­i­cal cri­sis and we won’t let cor­po­ra­tions get away with our world.

Lets halt the infra­struc­ture of more fos­sil fuel projects lock­ing us into a future of cli­mate chaos and that offer big buck high tech non-solu­tions.

Bris­tol Ris­ing Tide is an open group mak­ing col­lec­tive action ded­i­cat­ed to tack­ling the root caus­es of cli­mate chaos and cre­at­ing cli­mate jus­tice. We want to invite peo­ple to join this inter­na­tion­al day of action on cli­mate change.

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.

Woman’s protest halts phone mast

19th Novem­ber 2007
A woman has spent the day in a mud­dy hole out­side her house to pre­vent work­men build­ing a mobile phone mast.

Ruth Tay­lor beat the work­men to the site in Charl­ton Road, Keyn­sham, just before 0800 GMT and stood in the way.

19th Novem­ber 2007
A woman has spent the day in a mud­dy hole out­side her house to pre­vent work­men build­ing a mobile phone mast.

Ruth Tay­lor beat the work­men to the site in Charl­ton Road, Keyn­sham, just before 0800 GMT and stood in the way.

Bath and North East Som­er­set Coun­cil (B&NES) refused plan­ning per­mis­sion for the mast, but failed to tell O2 in the reg­u­lat­ed time.

The coun­cil has apol­o­gised and O2 has said it would meet with res­i­dents on Tues­day to dis­cuss their con­cerns.

I’m not con­fi­dent we’ll stop it alto­geth­er but delight­ed that we have stalled them
Ruth Tay­lor

Work had begun to pre­pare the site for the 13m (42.6 ft) mast but Ruth Tay­lor decid­ed to take on the telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions firm.

“The work­men turned up at about five to eight so I threw on my wellies which I’ve had ready by the door, dashed out here and got here first,” she said.

When they saw Mrs Tay­lor the work­men went away.

B&NES had 56 days to tell O2 the firm had been refused plan­ning approval but it took them 57 days.

Ongo­ing nego­ti­a­tions

In a state­ment the coun­cil said: “The coun­cil is aware of the con­cern that fail­ure to noti­fy O2 with­in the allot­ted time has caused to local res­i­dents and apol­o­gis­es for this.

“The coun­cil will as a mat­ter of urgency con­tin­ue to liaise with the oper­a­tors and oth­er par­ties to seek to resolve this sit­u­a­tion.

“Nego­ti­a­tions about a pos­si­ble re-sit­ing of the mast to River­side at some point in the future are ongo­ing.

“How­ev­er the site is not owned by the coun­cil or O2, and any deci­sion about this will need to be made by the site own­er.”

“There are bet­ter places that the coun­cil should have looked at and O2 should be look­ing at and it just is not right,” said Mrs Tay­lor.

“I’m not con­fi­dent we’ll stop it alto­geth­er but delight­ed that we have stalled them,” she said.

O2 said they must build the mast due to pres­sure from the gov­ern­ment and the pub­lic to boost cov­er­age.

Video of group of res­i­dents meet­ing O2 at site

Coal blockades Down Under — train & power plant

19th Novem­ber, 2007
Grass­roots cli­mate change action group Ris­ing Tide has block­ad­ed a coal train on its way into the world’s biggest coal export port, at Koor­a­gang Island in New­cas­tle Har­bour. No trains are able to enter Koor­a­gang Coal Ter­mi­nal because of the block­ade.

Australia coal train banner
Australia coal train lock-on19th Novem­ber, 2007
Grass­roots cli­mate change action group Ris­ing Tide has block­ad­ed a coal train on its way into the world’s biggest coal export port, at Koor­a­gang Island in New­cas­tle Har­bour. No trains are able to enter Koor­a­gang Coal Ter­mi­nal because of the block­ade.

The block­ade comes just two days after the Unit­ed Nations’ Inter­gov­ern­men­tal Pan­el on Cli­mate Change (IPCC) released a report warn­ing that the effects of cli­mate change will be worse than pre­vi­ous­ly antic­i­pat­ed, and five days before the Fed­er­al Elec­tion.

Spokesper­son for Ris­ing Tide, Georgina Woods, said, “Our Gov­ern­ments have failed us: both major par­ties are ter­mi­nal­ly addict­ed to coal. The sit­u­a­tion is dread­ful and we have been forced to take this action because the lead­er­ship of this coun­try is moral­ly bank­rupt.”

The IPCC reports that two degree Cel­sius warm­ing of the globe will put about one third of species at risk of extinc­tion. Bil­lions of peo­ple are pre­dict­ed to be at risk of water scarci­ty.

“There is no longer any room for vac­il­la­tion: we must act, and that is what we are doing today.”

“When faced with an over­whelm­ing prob­lem and a Gov­ern­ment unwill­ing or unable to take action to solve the prob­lem, it is the duty of all cit­i­zens to take action on the community’s behalf.

“There is no way Aus­tralia can con­tin­ue pass­ing the buck on cli­mate change. We are the biggest per capi­ta emit­ter of green­house gas­es and the biggest coal exporter in the world.

“Hun­dreds of com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers have pledged to take direct-action to pre­vent the expan­sion of the coal indus­try.

“We are tak­ing action today on behalf of our chil­dren, and for all those species that will be pushed to the extinc­tion by cli­mate change. It is uncon­scionable for the Gov­ern­ment and the coal indus­try to con­tin­ue prof­it­ing from accel­er­at­ing green­house gas emis­sions in this way.”

Con­tact: (02) 4926 1641
http://www.risingtide.org.au/

===========================================

Australia coal power plant painting
Activists shut down NSW coal pow­er plant

Novem­ber 15, 2007 — Ear­ly this morn­ing Green­peace activists occu­pied the Mun­morah coal-fired pow­er sta­tion. A Green­peace activist push­es a but­ton to stop the con­vey­or belt. It’s time to push the emer­gency switch on coal…
Aus­tralia — Ear­ly this morn­ing 15 Green­peace activists occu­pied and took peace­ful direct action to shut down a coal-fired pow­er plant on the NSW Cen­tral Coast. The occu­pa­tion was to protest against John Howard and Kevin Rud­d’s dis­mal cli­mate change poli­cies, which will not stop increas­ing green­house emis­sions.

Green­peace is demand­ing that both major par­ties com­mit to deep cuts to Australia’s green­house gas pol­lu­tion in the next decade, which means switch­ing from coal fired pow­er to clean­er and smarter ener­gy use.

9.45AM — The pow­er sta­tion has been evac­u­at­ed and is shut­ting down due to our occu­pa­tion. Sev­en activists have been arrest­ed and eight are still inside the plant. The activists have shut down the coal-feed con­vey­or belt and paint­ed the mes­sage “Coal Kills” on the roof of the sta­tion. They have also deployed a ban­ner say­ing “Cli­mate change starts here.” Two activists are also hang­ing off the roof dis­play­ing cli­mate change mes­sages.

The Mun­morah coal-fired pow­er sta­tion, 110km north-east of Syd­ney, is the old­est in NSW and one of the most inef­fi­cient in the coun­try.

Cli­mate activists took non-vio­lent direct action to shut down the pow­er sta­tion by lock­ing onto the con­vey­or sys­tem to pre­vent coal from feed­ing the plant. The activists hung a huge ban­ner read­ing ‘Cli­mate change starts here’.

Anoth­er team climbed on the roof of the main build­ing to paint the mes­sage “Coal Kills”. All staff were evac­u­at­ed from the plant around 7am.

Ener­gy cam­paign­er John Hep­burn, who was one of the climb team, said that we could­n’t just sit back and watch while sci­en­tists mea­sure how quick­ly humans are killing the plan­et.

“We need to cut car­bon emis­sions right now. It’s not com­pli­cat­ed. If we installed solar hot water heaters in half of NSW’s house­holds we could switch off Mun­morah and cut 1.5 mil­lion tonnes of CO2,” he said.

“The activists are protest­ing because just one week away from the fed­er­al elec­tion, both major par­ties are back­ing cli­mate poli­cies that will see green­house emis­sions increase. This at a time when the world’s top sci­en­tists are telling us we have no time to lose and must make deep cuts to emis­sions if we are to avoid dan­ger­ous cli­mate change.”

GRRENPEACE:
http://www.greenpeace.org/australia/

Manchester petrol station blockaded in Burma protest & 24th November national day of action vs Total

13.11.2007
Yes­ter­day, up to 20 human rights cam­paign­ers block­ad­ed a TOTAL garage on Oxford Road, Man­ches­ter. This was in protest at Total Oil’s invest­ment in the mil­i­tary regime of Bur­ma.

Manchester Total burma blockade13.11.2007
Yes­ter­day, up to 20 human rights cam­paign­ers block­ad­ed a TOTAL garage on Oxford Road, Man­ches­ter. This was in protest at Total Oil’s invest­ment in the mil­i­tary regime of Bur­ma.

The activists, many of them stu­dents, block­ad­ed the entrances to the petrol sta­tion suc­cess­ful­ly with the aid of 3 arm tubes. A large ban­ner was dis­played read­ing “Total­ly Out of Order — Fuelling oppres­sion in Bur­ma”. Leaflets were giv­en out result­ing in a num­ber of sup­port­ing com­ments from peo­ple walk­ing past.

a fourth arm tube was used to block­ade the exit of the garage. The protest delayed the entry of a lor­ry deliv­er­ing oil to the garage.

Police attend­ed the protest but had made no attempt to remove those who were locked to each oth­er with arm tubes by the time I left. There was also some main­stream media atten­tion, notably from the Man­ches­ter Evening News.

==-=-=-=-=

Nation­al Day of Action against TOTAL­i­tar­i­an Oil — Sat 24 Nov

For more details, see:
http://www.totaloutofburma.blogspot.com/

Privatisation planning barbed wire destroyed (Athens, 11/11/2007)

After an open assem­bly of the dis­trict res­i­dents, with an atten­dance of more than 300 per­sons, that focused on the mat­ters of the pri­vati­sa­tion of the Filopap­pou hills, the tress­pass­ing, the fences and the com­mer­cial­i­sa­tion of the area (check out the sources for more infor­ma­tion), it was decid­ed that the fences and wires should be brought down by the res­i­dents their­selves, as it was realised despite the police pres­ence.

Filopappou demoFilopappou fence downedFilopappou gate pushed downAfter an open assem­bly of the dis­trict res­i­dents, with an atten­dance of more than 300 per­sons, that focused on the mat­ters of the pri­vati­sa­tion of the Filopap­pou hills, the tress­pass­ing, the fences and the com­mer­cial­i­sa­tion of the area (check out the sources for more infor­ma­tion), it was decid­ed that the fences and wires should be brought down by the res­i­dents their­selves, as it was realised despite the police pres­ence.

Sources (Greek only) — pho­tos: http://militant-entertainment.blogspot.com
http://filopappou.wordpress.com
http://www.indy.gr/newswire/oi-katoikoi-kslosan-perifraksi-stoy-filopappoy

Climate Action News Sheet, 73 November 2007

CONTENTS:
———————————————-
UPCOMING ACTIONS AND EVENTS:
———————————————-
1) WILD LIE EXHIBITION PURSUES SHELL TO ABERYSTWYTH — 10–17.11.07

CONTENTS:
———————————————-
UPCOMING ACTIONS AND EVENTS:
———————————————-
1) WILD LIE EXHIBITION PURSUES SHELL TO ABERYSTWYTH — 10–17.11.07
2) FREE FILM SCREENING OF ‘THE WARNING’ — LONDON, 12.11.07
3) TOTTERDOWN ART TRAIL — BRISTOL, 16–18.11.07
4) OXFORDSHIRE ECO-HOUSE OPEN DAYS — 24–25.11.07
5) BANNER PROTEST AT BIOFUELS CONFERENCE — LONDON, 27.11.07
6) CRITICAL MASS DATES AND UPDATES – OCT/NOV 2007
7) CLIMATE CHANGE BIKE RIDE / NATIONAL MARCH — LONDON, 8.12.07
8) BEYONDTV FESTIVAL — SWANSEA, 28.11.07–2.12.07
9) CLIMATE CAMP EXHIBITION ON TOUR — WINTER 2007
10) LOW-IMPACT LIVING INITIATIVE COURSES — WINTER 2007
11) PLYMOUTH ENVIRONMENT CENTRE ART EXHIBITION – NOV/DEC 2007
12) EARTHFIRST MOOT / NEW ACTION UPDATE — WINTER 2007
13) FOSSIL FOOLS DAY — 1.4.08
———————————————-
RECENT HAPPENINGS:
———————————————-
1) SONGS OF FREEDOM AT OPENING OF SHELL’S WILD LIE EXHIBITION — 27.10.07
2) NATIONAL DAY OF LOCAL ACTION VS. ROYAL BANK OF SCOTLAND — 15.10.07
3) PEOPLE’S BLOCKADE OF WORLD’S BIGGEST COAL PORT — AUSTRALIA, 3.11.07
4) GREENWASH GUERILLAS DISRUPT “CARBON TRAITORS” IN NEW YORK — 30.10.07
5) BP EXECUTIVE PIED AT EUROPE’S LARGEST BIOFUELS EVENT — 17.10.07
6) CAMP HOPE, GLOUCESTER — 20–21.10.07
7) PLANE STUPID AT MANCHESTER AIRPORT — 8.10.2007
8) GREENPEACE PROTESTORS SHUT DOWN POWER PLANT — 8.10.07
9) TOTAL BLOCKADES — OCTOBER / NOVEMBER 2007
10) NUFFGLOBAL FILMS — NOVEMBER 2007
11) ESCALATING DEFLATION CAMPAIGN AGAINST 4X4S IN SWEDEN – OCT ‘07
12) DIRECT ACTION NEWS FROM GREECE — 7–15.10.07
13) BATH BOMB, ISSUE 4 — NOVEMBER 2007

———————————————-
UPCOMING ACTIONS AND EVENTS:
———————————————-
1) WILD LIE EXHIBITION PURSUES SHELL TO ABERYSTWYTH — 10–17.11.07
Imme­di­ate­ly after host­ing the 2006 Shell Wildlife Pho­tog­ra­ph­er exhi­bi­tion (organ­ised by the Nat­ur­al His­to­ry Muse­um and BBC Wildlife mag­a­zine) Aberys­t­wyth Arts Cen­tre is show­ing our counter-exhi­bi­tion; ‘Shel­l’s Wild Lie’. http://www.aberystwythartscentre.co.uk/whatson/exhibitions/
‘Shel­l’s Wild Lie’, has been put togeth­er as part of Lon­don Ris­ing Tide’s ‘Art Not Oil’ cam­paign, and fea­tures pho­tographs and illus­tra­tions that we con­sid­er give a truer snap­shot of the dis­as­trous effects that Shell and the whole fos­sil fuel indus­try have on our plan­et:
http://www.artnotoil.org.uk/gallery/v/Shell/
Book it your­self, and tell the Muse­um and BBC Wildlife what you think:
m.dixon@nhm.ac.uk, cc’ing to feedback@nhm.ac.uk,
wildlifeletters@bbcmagazinesbristol.com & info@artnotoil.org.uk

2) FREE FILM SCREENING, THE WARNING — LONDON, 12.11.07
The first UK screen­ing of the award-win­ning film “The Warn­ing” will be on 12th Novem­ber, 8pm at Pass­ing Clouds Works in Dal­ston, east Lon­don. This doc­u­men­tary charts the strug­gle of Siber­ian com­mu­ni­ties to pro­tect their sacred lands from preda­to­ry oil com­pa­nies. Pass­ing Clouds is behind ‘Uncle Sam’s’, which is on 438 Kings­land Road. Get there from Shored­itch /Old Street on the 242, 243, 67 or 149 bus­es.

3) TOTTERDOWN ART TRAIL — BRISTOL, 16–18.11.07
Includ­ing art, films and exhi­bi­tions con­nect­ed with cli­mate change and peak oil. www.frontroom.org.uk

4) OXFORDSHIRE ECO-HOUSE OPEN DAYS — 24–25.11.07
Are you plan­ning to ren­o­vate your house in the most envi­ron­men­tal way pos­si­ble? Do you want to slash ener­gy bills and make your house warmer and health­i­er? Are you sell­ing your house and want to improve its poor ener­gy rat­ing? Do you want to pre­pare for life in the cli­mate change cen­tu­ry? 18 eco-hous­es in Oxford­shire are open­ing their doors to the pub­lic to share the tech­niques, prod­ucts and pos­si­bil­i­ties of eco-ren­o­va­tion. This is a superb oppor­tu­ni­ty to see a wide range of approach­es and talk to the house own­ers direct­ly about their expe­ri­ences.
www.ecovation.org.uk
www.coinet.org.uk

5) BANNER PROTEST AT BIOFUELS CONFERENCE — LONDON, 27.11.07
This will take place out­side the Bio­fu­el Finance and Invest­ment World Con­fer­ence at Roy­al Gar­den Hotel, Kens­ing­ton High Street (near High Street Kens­ing­ton tube sta­tion) on Tues­day, 27th Novem­ber, 12 noon to 2pm.
Bio­fu­el invest­ment means more glob­al warm­ing, more defor­esta­tion, more peo­ple going hun­gry because of high­er food prices and food short­ages, and more human rights abus­es and refugees as agribusi­ness­es take con­trol over ever larg­er areas of land.
www.biofuelwatch.org.uk

6) CRITICAL MASS DATES AND UPDATES — OCTOBER / NOVEMBER 2007
Sheffield; last Fri­day of the month, 5:30pm at the Uni­ver­si­ty Con­course.
Lon­don; last Fri­day of the month, 6:00pm under Water­loo Bridge by the NFT, South Bank. Next ride Novem­ber 23rd 2007.
http://criticalmasslondon.org.uk/main.html
For reports on the Octo­ber rides see;
http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/6274

7) CLIMATE CHANGE BIKE RIDE / NATIONAL MARCH — LONDON, 8.12.07
Sat­ur­day 8 Decem­ber, Cyclists assem­ble 10am Lin­col­n’s Inn Fields. Cycling to Par­lia­ment Square to link up with main march to US Embassy, (timed to coin­cide with the UN cli­mate talks in Bali). Marchers assem­ble 12 noon Mill­bank for main march. [West­min­ster Tube]
2.30 pm Ral­ly at US embassy. Speak­ers include Chris Huhne MP, Michael Meach­er MP, Car­o­line Lucas MEP, Zac Gold­smith, George Mon­biot. The Nation­al Demo in Lon­don will be one of many glob­al cli­mate demon­stra­tions tak­ing place on the 8th.
http://www.campaigncc.org

8) BEYONDTV FESTIVAL — SWANSEA, 28.11.07–2.12.07
Under­cur­rents will host the 8th annu­al BEYONDTV fes­ti­val of polit­i­cal doc­u­men­taries, ani­ma­tions and music videos from inspir­ing media direc­tors. All films will have a theme of social or envi­ron­men­tal activism. Host­ed in the very heart of Swansea, BeyondTV promis­es to be an enter­tain­ing week with all pro­ceeds going to to sup­port the char­i­ty work of under­cur­rents.
http://beyondtvfestival.clearerchannel.org/whatisbtv

9) CLIMATE CAMP EXHIBITION ON TOUR — WINTER 2007
The Cli­mate Camp exhi­bi­tion doc­u­ments in sound, words, instal­la­tions and images the life, work­shops and direct action of those ten busy days in August. It exam­ines the issues and think­ing of peo­ple who seek to stop the world sleep­walk­ing into a dis­as­ter that is man­i­fest­ly pre­ventable, but huge­ly prof­itable for a pow­er­ful few. This exhi­bi­tion will be tour­ing UK cities threat­ened by region­al air­port expan­sion.
Work­shops, talks and film screen­ings will appear at http://www.minimouse.me.uk/show as they are con­firmed.
Pho­tographs from the show are a selec­tion from those to be seen at
http://www.minimouse.me.uk/photographers.html

10) LOW-IMPACT LIVING INITIATIVE COURSES — WINTER 2007
LILI will be run­ning 10 cours­es at a new venue called Unstone Grange (nr. Sheffield) and 28 one day cours­es at Hack­ney City Farm in Lon­don. For the full range of cours­es for 2007–2008, see;
http://www.lowimpact.org/courses.htm

11) PLYMOUTH ENVIRONMENT CENTRE ART EXHIBITION – NOV-DEC 2007
Ply­mouth Envi­ron­ment Cen­tre is hold­ing a fund-rais­ing art exhi­bi­tion and auc­tion at the B‑bar in the Bar­bi­can The­atre, Ply­mouth.
Exhi­bi­tion — Fri­day 23rd Novem­ber to Thurs­day 13th Decem­ber 2007
Auc­tion — Thurs­day 13th Decem­ber 2007 start­ing at 7pm
http://plymouthenvironmentcentre.org.uk/art_auction.php

12) EARTHFIRST MOOT / NEW ACTION UPDATE — WINTER 2007
To down­load the EF! Action Update and for advance notice of the Win­ter Moot (Feb­ru­ary gath­er­ing of eco-activists) see;
http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/6347

13) FOSSIL FOOLS DAY — 1.4.08
The site is now run­ning and will be fill­ing up with images, ideas, graph­ics, posters, links…
Check for updates on what promis­es to be a mem­o­rable day of action.
http://www.fossilfoolsday.org

———————————————-
RECENT HAPPENINGS:
———————————————-
1) SONGS OF FREEDOM AT OPENING OF SHELL’S WILD LIE EXHIBITION — 27.10.07
15 or so folk from all over Car­bon Town gath­ered today to sing a new hymn of hope to an oil-free future in the co-opt­ed cathe­dral that is the Unnat­ur­al His­to­ry Muse­um, where the heart­break­ing­ly beau­ti­ful Shell Wildlife Pho­tog­ra­ph­er of the Year exhi­bi­tion has just opened. Grad­u­al­ly the singers were removed, gath­er­ing again on the pave­ment out­side with
images from the Shel­l’s Wild Lie exhi­bi­tion and more songs. Spir­its were high, and respons­es from the pub­lic love­ly and heart-warm­ing. No police were present. It still looks as if the cam­paign to get Shell kicked out as spon­sor might bear fruit — we’ll find out very soon if its 2 year con­tract will be renewed. Let’s keep the pres­sure up!
For a full report and what you can do to help, see;
http://risingtide.org.uk/node/231
http://www.artnotoil.org.uk//content/view/39/1/
For a short film of the action, see;
http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2007/10/384607.html

2) NATIONAL DAY OF LOCAL ACTION VS. ROYAL BANK OF SCOTLAND — 15.10.07
From Edin­burgh to Corn­wall, block­ades to invis­i­ble the­atre, polar bears to trea­cle tarts; RBS felt the sting today. All in all there were 32 actions across the coun­try includ­ing firsts for sev­er­al groups. Every­one is delight­ed with the phe­nom­e­nal response to the day of action…except RBS of course! The actions high­light­ed their role as one of the world’s
largest fun­ders of cli­mate-wreck­ing oil and gas extrac­tion. For full reports on the var­i­ous fan­tas­tic protests see;
http://risingtide.org.uk/node/230
http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2007/10/383812.html
http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/5176

3) THE PEOPLE’S BLOCKADE OF THE WORLD’S BIGGEST COAL PORT — AUSTRALIA,
3.11.07
Ris­ing Tide Aus­tralia esti­mate that about 400 peo­ple came to Horse­shoe Beach, New­cas­tle and that about 250 entered the ship­ping chan­nel to block­ade the world’s biggest coal port with canoes, kayaks and inner tubes. This was a fan­tas­tic show of com­mu­ni­ty deter­mi­na­tion to take action against Aus­trali­a’s biggest con­tri­bu­tion to cli­mate change, despite
resis­tance from gov­ern­ment and indus­try. As well as being a pow­er­ful and sym­bol­ic action, the protest suc­ceed­ed in dis­rupt­ing coal exports from New­cas­tle Har­bour.
http://www.risingtide.org.au/peoplesblockadereport

4) GREENWASH GUERILLAS DISRUPT “CARBON TRAITORS” IN NEW YORK — 30.10.07
Ris­ing Tide North America’s Green­wash Guer­ril­las paid a sur­prise Hal­loween vis­it to the Car­bon Mar­ket Insights con­fer­ence in New York City. Pos­ing as del­e­gates, two pro­test­ers took the stage at the exclu­sive event and pre­sent­ed the 700 atten­dees with a “Deed to the Atmos­phere” denounc­ing Car­bon Trad­ing as a sham approach to the fos­sil fuels cri­sis. The action was the first in the US to tar­get the grow­ing Car­bon Trad­ing indus­try.
http://risingtidenorthamerica.org/wordpress/category/front-page/

5) BP EXECUTIVE PIED AT EUROPE’S LARGEST BIOFUELS EVENT — 17.10.07
A stunned audi­ence gasped as a cream-pie was launched at BP Bio­fu­els’ Europe & Africa Direc­tor Oliv­er Mace, while activists swarmed the stage and hand­ed out leaflets to atten­dees. One of the pro­test­ers D‑locked him­self to the podi­um, telling del­e­gates “we need to reduce our con­sump­tion now – tech­no­log­i­cal fix­es are not the answer.” Pan­ic alarms
were then set off around the room and the con­fer­ence was halt­ed.
There was also a demo out­side the event and a lock on block­ade at a D1 refin­ery. D1 are one of the biggest traders in bio­fu­el spe­cif­ic crops.
http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2007/10/384123.html
http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/5205
http://www.biofuelwatch.org.uk/expoprotests.php

6) CAMP HOPE, GLOUCESTER — 20–21.10.07
Camp Hope took place in a field oppo­site the entrance to Glouces­ter­shire Air­port on the week­end of 20/21 Octo­ber 2007. Activists set up the camp in protest at the pro­posed expan­sion and increased avi­a­tion at Staver­ton in Glouces­ter. Work­shops and dis­cus­sions includ­ed those giv­en by; Bicy­col­o­gy, Plane Stu­pid, Seeds For Change, Stop Bris­tol Air­port Expan­sion and Bio­fu­el­watch.
http://www.myspace.com/campofhope

7) PLANE STUPID AT MANCHESTER AIRPORT — 8.10.2007
Activists from Man­ches­ter Cli­mate Action and Man­ches­ter Plane Stu­pid block­ad­ed the secu­ri­ty check-in of ter­mi­nal 3 of Man­ches­ter Air­port. Pas­sen­gers were denied access to the depar­ture lounge by sev­en activists locked togeth­er using arm-tube devices. Leaflets and train timeta­bles were hand­ed out. Two ban­ners were unfurled read­ing, Man­ches­ter City Council…supporting cli­mate chaos and Domes­tic flights cost the Earth. The action was inspired by the Camp for Cli­mate Action.
http://www.planestupid.com/?q=content/climate-change-activists-blockade-domestic-flights

8) GREENPEACE PROTESTORS SHUT DOWN POWER PLANT — 8.10.07
Green­peace cam­paign­ers staged a dawn raid at a pow­er plant which could be the site of Britain’s first new coal-fired sta­tion for 20 years. More than 50 activists said they want­ed Prime Min­is­ter Gor­don Brown to reject the pro­pos­al for the Kingsnorth site, on the Hoo Penin­su­la, in Kent. After enter­ing the site, one team locked on to con­vey­or belts while anoth­er team climbed to the top of the chim­ney.
http://greenpeace.org.uk/tags/kingsnorth

9) TOTAL BLOCKADES — OCTOBER / NOVEMBER 2007
A wave of demon­stra­tions against the oil giant Total and its role in sup­port­ing the bru­tal regime in Bur­ma have tak­en place in Lon­don, Brad­ford, Cardiff and Oxford. While not strict­ly cli­mate-based, these protests keep the spot­light on crim­i­nals like Total. Aung San Suu Kyi, Burma’s pro-democ­ra­cy leader, said that “Total has become the main sup­port­er of the Burmese mil­i­tary regime.” She told the French week­ly Le Nou­v­el Obser­va­teur that “Total knew what it was doing when it invest­ed mas­sive­ly in Bur­ma while oth­ers with­drew from the mar­ket for eth­i­cal rea­sons”.
http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/5122 & 5137, 5204, 5207 & 6346

10) NUFFGLOBAL FILMS — NOVEMBER 2007
NUF­F­glob­al film fes­ti­val sup­port­ed a project to pro­duce 25 short films on dif­fer­ent aspects of cli­mate change made by young film-mak­ers from around the world. For more info and to watch the clips online see;
http://nuffglobal.net/

11) ESCALATING DEFLATION CAMPAIGN AGAINST 4X4S IN SWEDEN – OCT ‘07
One thou­sand 4x4s have now been dis­armed by The Indi­ans of the Con­crete Jun­gle! The cam­paign is spread­ing like wild­fire, prompt­ing nation­al debate and furi­ous aggres­sion among SUV-own­ers.
http://asfaltsdjungelnsindianer.wordpress.com/

12) DIRECT ACTION NEWS FROM GREECE — 7–15 OCTOBER 2007
http://directactiongr.blogspot.com

13) BATH BOMB, ISSUE 4 — NOVEMBER 2007
For the 4th edi­tion of Bath’s pre­miere rad­i­cal tabloid see; http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2007/11/385124.html

Com­piled and sent out by Ris­ing Tide UK: info at risingtide.org.uk
To receive this News Sheet month­ly, email news-sub­scribe at risingtide.org.uk
with the sub­ject line ‘sub­scribe’ (with­out the quotes).

Ogoni 9 Day — Rossport Endures to Prevail; Today Smelt Like Victory (photos)

Novem­ber 9th 2007
Not in our name !

Mayo Ogoni solidarity 1

Mayo Ogoni solidarity 3Novem­ber 9th 2007
Not in our name !

Today, to com­mem­o­rate Shel­l’s judi­cial mur­der of the Ogo­ni 9 and a look back in anger at the Gar­da baton-fest a year ago, some 400 activists jour­neyed from all reach­es of Ire­land to voice our out­rage out­side and inside Shel­l’s Bel­lan­aboy site, I was with the sec­tion of pro­tes­tors that first manned the front line at Bel­lan­aboy bridge at 6AM at the request of S2S when it was right­ly sur­mised that Shell and the Guards would attempt to steal a march by bring­ing the work­ers in ear­ly — for a while, before Gar­da weight of num­bers pre­vailed, we were effec­tive in blockad­ing and pre­vent­ing them from earn­ing their 30 pieces of Mam­mon sil­ver inside.

After being pre­vent­ed from join­ing the main group by a two deep line of Guards, we suc­cess­ful­ly scaled the gates of the refin­ery to be greet­ed inside with wan­ton vio­lence and rough han­dling by Shel­l’s thugs dressed in secu­ri­ty uni­forms.

What stim­u­lat­ed the title was an encounter with a Ger­man from Riegen and a cou­ple from the UK Mid­lands who had spent the pre­vi­ous 48 hours trav­el­ling over­land from main­land Europe and Eng­land just to attend today’s protest, what com­mit­ment?, even so, the peo­ple of Erris match it and, fur­ther afield, activists, who with a gran­ite sense of con­science turn up again and again in Bel­lan­aboy to bear wit­ness against a rogue cor­po­ra­tion and their shoe shine boys in gov­ern­ment who pave and grease their way?

Updates received via Text Mes­sage from Pro­tes­tors

6.47: Gate 2 blocked since 6am

7.10: Sit­u­a­tion tense for a group from Cork hemmed in near Gate 2 (gate near­est the bridge). On the road but the guards have half of it.

7.35: The refin­ery site has been occu­pied. One group of 30 peo­ple have entered and are now occu­py­ing the site com­pound. Mean­while on the road between the bridge and Gate 2, a group of 90 pro­test­ers pre­vent­ed a truck from from enter­ing the site for about 20 min­utes. The truck drove over one per­son­’s foot and an ambu­lance is on its way. One of the block­aders was arrest­ed around the same time.

8:08: The same truck that drove over the pro­test­er’s foot is still being block­ad­ed from enter­ing the quar­ry (around 40 min­utes at this stage).

8:35: There are cur­rent­ly two dif­fer­ent groups on the build­ing site and anoth­er two groups of block­aders at Gate 1 and Gate 2.

The pro­test­er whose foot was dri­ven over has been tak­en to hos­pi­tal. Guards were report­ed as being very rough while remov­ing peo­ple from the road at Gate 2 — stand­ing on peo­ple’s arms and chests and pulling them off the road by their necks. Local, John Mon­aghan had his cam­era pulled off him and thrown into the ditch by gar­dai.

8:57: The truck has since got past the block­ade of Gate 2 (leav­ing it blocked for just over an hour). 30/40 local peo­ple were active­ly involved in the block­ade. Guards report­ed as vio­lent­ly drag­ging peo­ple away — punch­ing peo­ple in back and stom­ach. Many guards report­ed as not wear­ing their iden­ti­fi­ca­tion num­bers.

The block­aders have now joined the group at the main gate to the site and there is a line of gar­dai (now includ­ing the pub­lic order unit) between them and the com­pound gate. Two oth­er arrests have been con­firmed aside from the pro­test­er blockad­ing Gate 2. Fur­ther details on these two arrests to be con­firmed.

9:05: One group of about 20 pro­test­ers on the site attempt­ed to get past the inner gate (with spikes on top) to the site but suf­fered minor injuries (cut hands) as well as ripped and torn cloth­ing as the site secu­ri­ty pre­vent­ed them from get­ting across by push­ing them back against the spikes at the top of the gate. Two of the peo­ple who suc­ceed­ed in get­ting to the inner site were eject­ed from the site by site secu­ri­ty need­ed first aid but are now on their way up to join the group on the road by the main gate.

10:26: Six peo­ple have been escort­ed out of the com­pound after breach­ing it via a back entrance. The group man­aged to breach the inner perime­ter and stop work tem­porar­i­ly. There were minor scuf­fles but secu­ri­ty were ‘gen­er­al­ly nice’.

14:56: 16 peo­ple are cur­rent­ly on site. There are secu­ri­ty present but no gar­dai as of yet. The group is a mix of locals and sup­port­ers.

15:01: “Secu­ri­ty guards assault­ing pro­test­ers, grab­bing cam­eras, work con­tin­u­ing”

25,000 blockade world’s longest dam in India

Sol­i­dar­i­ty would be huge­ly appre­ci­at­ed as Indi­a’s Supreme Court looks like it is going to rule in favour of min­ing cor­po­ra­tion Vedan­ta to be able to mine the Niyami­giri Hills in Oris­sa, which will mean the death of thou­sands of peo­ple and will set a prece­dent for the min­ing of all of Indi­a’s forests.

Sol­i­dar­i­ty would be huge­ly appre­ci­at­ed as Indi­a’s Supreme Court looks like it is going to rule in favour of min­ing cor­po­ra­tion Vedan­ta to be able to mine the Niyami­giri Hills in Oris­sa, which will mean the death of thou­sands of peo­ple and will set a prece­dent for the min­ing of all of Indi­a’s forests.

25,000 farm­ers are to form a human chain around one of the worlds largest dams in protest against devel­op­ment by British min­ing cor­po­ra­tion Vedan­ta Resources PLC. Cen­tral to the con­flict are issues over water allo­ca­tion to the alu­mini­um indus­try and a baux­ite min­ing project whose effects Indi­a’s Supreme Court have been warned by its own inves­ti­ga­to­ry com­mit­tee would lead to “cul­tur­al geno­cide.” [1]

Farm­ers in Indi­a’s poor­est state, Oris­sa, have grad­u­al­ly been los­ing the right to water from the Hirakud dam since it began to irri­gate and pro­duce ener­gy for the region in 1947. Whilst they claim that today only 25% of their fields receive any irri­ga­tion, allo­ca­tion of water to heavy indus­try has increased by over 27 times with­in the past ten years. [2] The major bene­fac­tor of this is the alu­mini­um indus­try, Hin­dal­co and Vedan­ta, present in Oris­sa due to its rich baux­ite deposits [alu­mini­um ore] and the huge amount of water avail­able from the Hirakud dam. [3]

Vedan­ta is cur­rent­ly on the crux of win­ning a legal bat­tle grant­i­ng it the right to mine three mil­lion tonnes of baux­ite from the most bio­di­verse for­est region in Oris­sa, the Niyam­giri hills. The min­ing threat­ens many rare species of ani­mals and plants which inhab­it the region, as well as the exis­tence of an entire trib­al pop­u­la­tion, the Don­garia Kondhs.

Today is the lat­est con­fronta­tion between dif­fer­ent inter­est groups in a ‘water war’ which reflects grow­ing glob­al con­flicts over water short­ages in a dry­ing plan­et. Police have fired on and killed demon­stra­tors in pre­vi­ous mass protests in Oris­sa and it is like­ly that fol­low­ing the recent con­tentious pro-Vedan­ta deci­sions of Indi­a’s Supreme Court, con­flicts may well become more heat­ed.

Feel like ring­ing up Vedan­ta to tell them to screw them­selves? Good!

investorrelations@vedantaresources.com

Sumanth Cidambi
Asso­ciate Direc­tor Investor Rela­tions
Tele­phone: +91 22 6646 1444

Vedan­ta Resources plc
16 Berke­ley Street
Lon­don W1J 8DZ

Robin Walk­er & Faeth Birch

Fins­bury Com­mu­ni­ca­tions
52–58 Taber­na­cle Street
Lon­don
EC2A 4NJ

Tele­phone: +44 (0) 20 7251 3801

tak­en from http://www.vedantaresources.com/contactus.htm

Tara — Transport minister has transport problems

Novem­ber 2nd 2007

Dig­gers dived and Dempsey done

“trans­port prob­lems for dept of trans­ports noel dempsey”

Con­ser­va­tion­ists angry at what they call,‘The des­e­cra­tion of Ire­land’s cul­tur­al her­itage’ laid siege to a Trim hotel (Fri­day 2nd nov) where trans­port min­is­ter Noel Dempsey cel­e­brat­ed anoth­er gov­ern­ment decen­tral­i­sa­tion project.

Novem­ber 2nd 2007

Dig­gers dived and Dempsey done

“trans­port prob­lems for dept of trans­ports noel dempsey”

Con­ser­va­tion­ists angry at what they call,‘The des­e­cra­tion of Ire­land’s cul­tur­al her­itage’ laid siege to a Trim hotel (Fri­day 2nd nov) where trans­port min­is­ter Noel Dempsey cel­e­brat­ed anoth­er gov­ern­ment decen­tral­i­sa­tion project.

Fol­low­ing a morn­ing of suc­ces­ful dig­ger div­ing by 2 crews at Col­lier­stown and sol­diers hill,where 1 activist was arrest­ed for not giv­ing his name,then released an hour lat­er.

Some of the 40 Tara M3 pro­tes­tors dodged secu­ri­ty to enter the rear of the Knights­brook Hotel and golf resort where the recep­tion was tak­ing place,

At one point cater­ing staff — some Pol­ish — were sent to con­front them.

Ear­li­er, 10 con­ser­va­tion­ists harangued the vet­er­an politi­cian as he left the con­struc­tion site for the new Office of Pub­lic Works, where he had turned the first sod.

His day was fur­ther spoiled when it was dis­cov­ered that two tyres of his min­is­te­r­i­al Mere­cedes had been let down.

A spokesman for Tara Sol­i­dar­i­ty Vig­il said: “The graves of the ancient Fian­na have been bull­dozed, the bones dug up and the remains are still await­ing re-inter­ment to their orig­i­nal rest­ing place.

“It is bla­tant grave rob­bery and Irish peo­ple should be dis­gust­ed,

“Imag­ine if Glas­nevin (Dublin) had a pro­posed motor­way going right through it in 2000 years time.

“The aim was not to scare Mr Dempsey but to have a chance to com­mu­ni­cate our con­cern at his lack of inter­est in an alter­na­tive, cheap­er M3 route avoid­ing the Tara Skyrne Val­ley where there is poten­tial for a rail line and for valu­able tourism for gen­er­a­tions to come.

“This pro­posed UNESCO World Her­itage Park will thus be an asset to the peo­ple of Ire­land.”

Resis­tance is grow­ing from Ross­port to Tara, and our actions are increas­ing in their effectiveness,as is evi­dent from the gov­ern­ment cen­sor­ing www.tarapixie.net on pub­lic access inter­net ter­mi­nals. This means we are win­ning some­where and have raised major con­cerns with­in the halls of pow­er. As song,poetry and music were once again heard in the halls of Tara over Samhain. We hope all Irish and inter­na­tion­al net­works will ral­ly to the sup­port of the Tara Valley.Activists urgent­ly need­ed now num­bers are low after the Samhain celebration.As activists dig in for the win­ter support,food,warm gear and peo­ple needed.Hear the call.

http://www.tarapixie.net