GAGGED! #15 — South Wales Anarchist Newsletter

GAGGED! #15 Jan/Feb 07 anti-copy­right
South Wales Anar­chist Newslet­ter • southwalesanarchists.org • PO Box 70, New­port NP20 5XX
Much pret­ti­er here (with pics etc) on pdf —  http://lists.riseup.net/www/d_read/gagged/gagged15.pdf

Star-buck­ing the con­sumer trend
Cof­fee Not Bombs hits New­port!!
Armed with only Zap­atista cof­fee, soya milk, sug­ar, a gas burn­er & a load of paper cups lib­er­at­ed from a near­by tourist attrac­tion, South Wales anar­chists took on the might of con­sumer cap­i­tal­ism in New­port town cen­tre on Sat­ur­day 16 Decem­ber 2006.
Sport­ing bad hang­overs & an inter­est­ing line in black San­ta hats (Bah Hum­bug! Save the Plan­et!), activists dis­trib­uted free cof­fee, leaflets & issues of Gagged! to bemused passers-by, many of whom stopped for grate­ful­ly-received cup­pa & a chat.
The action, which took place out­side a local out­let of cor­po­rate cof­fee whores Star­bucks, also fea­tured live music (thank­ful­ly drown­ing out the Sal­va­tion Army Brass Band up the road), & a large group of mosh­ing youths.
Cof­fee, after oil, is the sec­ond largest export in the world; with a turnover of about 10 bil­lion dol­lars, Its pro­duc­tion employs 25 mil­lion peo­ple in the south­ern hemi­sphere. While Star­bucks enjoys record prof­its, its cof­fee farm­ers can’t even afford to ade­quate­ly feed their chil­dren on the 2–50¢/lb they are paid for cof­fee that sells for at least $10/lb. The Zap­atis­tas are a rev­o­lu­tion­ary anti-cor­po­rate social move­ment from Chi­a­pas, Mex­i­co, who are fight­ing for the auton­o­my of the indige­nous pop­u­la­tion as a solu­tion to their immense pover­ty. Their organ­ic cof­fees rais­es mon­ey direct­ly for the autonomous com­mu­ni­ties that pro­duced it.
Accord­ing to Cred­it Action, the total amount of UK per­son­al debt has exceed­ed £1 tril­lion. With con­sumerism being used as a buy-off to stop us whing­ing about unpop­u­lar neo-colo­nial wars fought in our name, why not organ­ise a Food/Coffee not Bombs demo of your own?
All it takes is a lit­tle bit of inge­nu­ity & culi­nary nous. You can then bring the bat­tle to your local high street, engage with the com­mu­ni­ty & intro­duce peo­ple to a non-con­sumer take on their cof­fee break.
Check out: www.foodnotbombs.net

PIPELINE TO DISASTER
Resis­tance from local peo­ple & cli­mate action groups is con­tin­u­ing against the con­tro­ver­sial gas pipeline being carved across South Wales. The Liq­uid Nat­ur­al Gas (LNG) pipeline will run 115 miles from Mil­ford Haven to Glouces­ter­shire car­ry­ing gas from the Mid­dle East. It is the high­est pres­sure pipeline ever to have been attempt­ed in Europe. It’s builders, Nation­al Grid (for­mer­ly TRANSCO) have pub­licly admit­ted they have no expe­ri­ence of run­ning a 48â€? pipeline at 94bar pres­sure.
Many res­i­dents along the route of the pipeline feel they haven’t been prop­er­ly con­sult­ed, some feel bul­lied & deceived, with some peo­ple hav­ing their homes com­pul­so­ri­ly pur­chased. There have been many safe­ty con­cerns as the pipe is being laid across the only earth­quake zone in Britain, parts of it on land deemed too unsta­ble for hous­es. The gas is odour­less so peo­ple wouldn’t know if there was a leak yet the Health & Safe­ty Exec­u­tive have guar­an­teed that a hole will appear in the pipeline with­in 30 years. In Tre­banos, near Swansea, the land was deemed too unsta­ble for mains gas to the vil­lage; now they’re build­ing Europe’s biggest gas pipeline! Mil­ford Haven cam­paign group Safe Haven has tried to chal­lenge the devel­op­ment through the courts, but could­n’t even get a decent hear­ing.
On 12th Novem­ber activists set up camp on the route, a 60ft sec­tion of pipeline was occu­pied for over a week halt­ing all build­ing work in the area. They explained: “We’ve tak­en this direct action, in part­ner­ship with local res­i­dents, to active­ly stop this project because we believe that non-renew­able ener­gy belongs in the past & we need to look to a future of renew­able sources or we’ll have no future at all!â€?. The protest suc­cess­ful­ly got the Depart­ment of Trade & Indus­try to revoke the per­mis­sion to blast with explo­sives as Nation­al Grid orig­i­nal­ly planned. How­ev­er there is still con­cern about avalanch­es, sim­i­lar to those of Aber­fan & Pan­teg, as the pipe cross­es old mine work­ings.
On 16th Novem­ber a protest site was start­ed along a sec­tion of the Pem­brokeshire Coastal Path in the shad­ow of the LNG ter­mi­nals, cut­ting across the route of con­nect­ing pipelines. Nation­al Grid had­n’t both­ered to apply for the pub­lic access­way to be closed for con­struc­tion work so locals in the Mil­ford Haven area, inspired by the protest camp in Tre­banos, took their chance. Tra­cy Mor­ris, a mem­ber of the Safe Haven Net­work & local moth­er of three, plant­ed a tent direct­ly across the foot­path, & Nation­al Grid were oblig­ed to put a fence around it. The camp per­sists, manned by a small but deter­mined band of locals, some of pen­sion­able age. “Some peo­ple think we’re crazy, but I don’t care any­more” says Tra­cy. “I’ll fight them to the bit­ter end.”
Things just seem to be going from bad to worse for Nation­al Grid. In Novem­ber they received huge con­dem­na­tion after some of their 4x4 vehi­cles tore up an untouched upland bog near Myny­dd Myddfai in the Bre­con Bea­cons. The nation­al park author­i­ty said “the frag­ile nature of the area makes it almost impos­si­ble to put right any dam­ageâ€? & went on to release a 67 page doc­u­ment con­demn­ing the pipeline & its “huge envi­ron­men­tal impactâ€?.
Pres­sure against con­trac­tors con­tin­ued with a demon­stra­tion out­side British Gas HQ in Cardiff. Ban­ners were held & leaflets dis­trib­uted amongst the work­ers. A British Gas spokesper­son claimed they have noth­ing to do with the pipeline. Fun­ny that because the project is the brain child of Cen­tri­ca (who own British Gas). British Gas joint­ly own Drag­on LNG & have a 50% stake in the com­pa­ny trans­port­ing the gas to the Mil­ford Haven.
On 8th Jan­u­ary a new site was set up in Tre­banos under the cov­er of dark­ness at 4am whilst the secu­ri­ty slept! The site is on pub­lic foot­paths lead­ing into the con­struc­tion site off Glyn Meirch road, & is block­ing vehi­cles from gain­ing access.
Activists & locals have vowed to con­tin­ue the fight against the pipeline. We are being thrown head first in to cli­mate chaos & our gov­ern­ments are still build­ing infra­struc­ture for non renew­able fos­sil fuels. What we need is renew­able ener­gy & we need it now, not in 20 years!
The pipeline is already well over sched­ule & mas­sive­ly over bud­get. We demand that this pipeline project is scrapped.
Peo­ple are urgent­ly need­ed to help occu­py the sites.
Get in con­tact for direc­tions.
Mil­ford Haven camp: Tra­cy Mor­ris 07752698489 or Jim Dunck­ley 07933082239
Tre­banos camp: Site Phone 07733190958 or Rachel Evans 07790450747
or set up a protest camp along the route your­self!

ANOTHER DEATH IN CUSTODY
On 29th Decem­ber a 58 year woman died in cus­tody at Swansea Cen­tral Police sta­tion. She (unnamed at this time) was arrest­ed for a dri­ving offense. para­medics were called but could not revive her. The cause of death is unknown or how long she had been held. The case is to be inves­ti­gat­ed by Inde­pen­dent Police Com­plaints Com­mis­sion. But just like the over 1,000 deaths in police cus­tody it is unlike­ly any­one will be held respon­si­ble. Only 3 police offi­cers have been in over 10 years.

Chant­i­ng Ban?!
In GAGGED 14 we brought you the news that the Met want to bring in in new laws that ban the wear­ing of masks at protests & to make the burn­ing of flags a crim­i­nal offense. Now they want to out­law ‘offensive chants’.
Met Assis­tant Com­mis­sion­er, Tarique Ghaf­fur wants pow­ers to pro­scribe protest chants & slo­gans on plac­ards, ban­ners & head­bands. The call comes as part of a review of the pow­ers to police protests prompt­ed by recent protests by Islam­ic extrem­ists, but clear­ly such pow­ers could also be used against pro­test­ers such as ani­mal rights & anti-glob­al­i­sa­tion activists. The civ­il rights group Lib­er­ty said the pow­ers would make the police “cen­sors in chief”.
Chuf­fer of the Met stat­ed, “What we are see­ing in effect is a rise in the politi­ci­sa­tion of mid­dle Eng­landâ€?. Again the State seem to be tak­ing the approach of sti­fling pub­lic dis­sent rather than tack­ling the issues that give rise to the politi­ci­sa­tion in the first place.
At the moment ‘causing offense’ is not against the law. Who would be the judge of what would be classed as caus­ing offense? Clear­ly what offends one will not nec­es­sar­i­ly offend anoth­er. Such pro­posed pow­ers would clash with arti­cle 10 of the Euro­pean Con­ven­tion on Human Rights, which pro­tects free­dom of expres­sion.
These new demands for curbs on the right to protest come as the Lords rule that police had act­ed unlaw­ful­ly in detain­ing a bus full of Iraq war pro­test­ers head­ing for a demon­stra­tion at RAF Fair­ford in March 2003 & forcibly turn­ing them back. Clear­ly the police are unable to keep a lid on protest with exist­ing laws, so rather than being “Tough on the caus­es of crimeâ€?, Tony Blair’s mantra from the 1997 elec­tion, they think it eas­i­er to invent new laws to fur­ther erode civ­il lib­er­ty in this coun­try.

STOCK TRANSFER
WHAT THEY ARE NOT TELLING US
Coun­cil ten­ants are being asked by Tor­faen Coun­cil to vote for stock trans­fer of our homes to a reg­is­tered social land­lord (Bron Afon Com­mu­ni­ty Hous­ing). What we are not being told is what oth­er Coun­cil assets will be trans­ferred to Bron Afon Com­mu­ni­ty Hous­ing in the process.
In a let­ter of reply to a Free­dom of Infor­ma­tion request, Tor­fean Coun­cil stat­ed that:
“no deci­sion has been made about what oth­er assets would trans­fer. This is a deci­sion that will be made by nego­ti­a­tion between Bron Afon Com­mu­ni­ty Hous­ing and Tor­fean Coun­ty Bor­ough Coun­cil after the ten­ants’ bal­lot, if ten­ants vote in favour of transfer.â€?
If stock trans­fer goes ahead we could see com­mu­ni­ty owned assets such as play­ing fields, parks, green spaces, allot­ments, local shop­ping cen­tres, car parks, etc hand­ed over to Bron Afon Com­mu­ni­ty Hous­ing Trust.
The deci­sion on whether to trans­fer these assets will affect all the res­i­dents of Tor­faen who have paid for these over the years, not just coun­cil ten­ants.
The peo­ple of Tor­fean should be very con­cerned and demand to know all the facts con­cern­ing stock trans­fer before any bal­lot is held.
See the case against stock trans­fer: www.defendcouncilhousing.org.uk

Oh to be a migrant
You could leave your fam­i­ly, friends, home. Risk your life in search of a bet­ter one. You could sur­vive, unlike the 1000s that die cross­ing oceans & bor­ders around the world every year. You could enter the UK.
You could be impris­oned in one of its 12 pri­vate­ly run deten­tion cen­tres, where you could be sub­ject to phys­i­cal, men­tal, & racist abuse.
You could be deport­ed back ‘home’ where you could face war, tor­ture, rape, repres­sion, impris­on­ment — all of which you could have been flee­ing in the first place.
You could be work­ing in degrad­ing con­di­tions on the black mar­ket — clean­ing, pros­ti­tu­tion, wait­ing… liv­ing a pre­car­i­ous, invis­i­ble exis­tence, hid­ing in the shad­ows, nev­er sure, nev­er know­ing when you might be seen & sent back.
You could final­ly have your sto­ry believed & allowed to live in the UK. You could then be sub­ject to racist harass­ment from nar­row mind­ed big­ots & a racist mass media.
You could won­der whether it is pos­si­ble for any­one to live a free & dig­ni­fied life in a world order run for the rich by the rich.
You could say enough! Join all those who oppose immi­gra­tion con­trols, deten­tion cen­tres & depor­ta­tions. You could fight for a world were peo­ple & plan­et are placed before prof­it!
A demon­stra­tion has been called by No Bor­ders Lon­don out­side Har­mondsworth & Colnbrook deten­tion cen­tres — 11.30 am Sat­ur­day 10 Feb­ru­ary 2007. www.barbedwirebritain.org.uk

JUST A MINUTE
2006 her­ald­ed a new era for CAN, fol­low­ing the genius idea that min­utes be tak­en at the meet­ings & then sub­se­quent­ly post­ed on the inter­web. Apart from being an effi­cient way of inform­ing inter­est­ed peo­ple of what is going on, it is also an excel­lent oppor­tu­ni­ty to obtain cheap laughs at the expense of friends, com­rades & forced acquain­tances. The lat­ter has actu­al­ly become the rai­son d’etre of the whole scheme, but if one reads between the lines, it is in fact still pos­si­ble to find out about actions & events, both local­ly & world-wide.
It has also been a form of out­reach to peo­ple who don’t feel com­fort­able /don’t like/are too busy to come to meet­ings, a fact all too eas­i­ly for­got­ten by us meet­ing junkies.
The meet­ings are sup­posed to be facil­i­tat­ed on a hor­i­zon­tal, every­one-gets-a-say, no-one hogs the lime­light basis, with a foun­da­tion of calm effi­cien­cy. This hasn’t ever hap­pened. The style so far has wan­dered between aggres­sive ruth­less­ness & uncon­scious­ness, result­ing in an atmos­phere of res­ig­na­tion & dread. It real­ly is some­thing to see & we’re sure that if you came to a meet­ing it would be some­thing you could talk about for years to come.
The four main top­ics that we dis­cuss are, (in no par­tic­u­lar order), Anti-Mil­i­tarism, G8, ID Cards & Cli­mate Change. There’s always room for fur­ther dis­cus­sion of oth­er sub­jects after these though. Sub­jects cov­ered so far have includ­ed free par­ties, bats, badges, local author­i­ty hous­ing, film nights, the web site & home-made wine. Sure­ly some­thing there for every­one.
The last sec­tion of the meet­ing is extreme­ly rigid in its struc­ture, & takes the form of the ques­tion “Where are we going for a pint then?â€?. We adjourn to a near­by pub for an increase in bel­ly laughs & to com­plain about the how the meet­ing we were just at was. Come to the dark side…
To have a look/chuckle at the min­utes, go to cardiff.revolt.org/about%20us/minutes.htm

Racist Cardiff cops in fake air­port ter­ror alert
Under Sched­ule 7 of the Ter­ror­ism Act 2000, a police offi­cer has pow­ers to detain for up to 9 hours ‘whether or not he has grounds for sus­pect­ing that a per­son’ is a ter­ror­ist. Yes, you did read that right. If a plod doesn’t like the look of you, he can keep you locked up for hours on end, even if he hasn’t got any real rea­son for it. This is what hap­pened to Aisha Pritchard & her Pales­tin­ian hus­band Sadi Elhaloul when they were due to fly to Dubai for a 4 day break on 14th Decem­ber. After going through the usu­al secu­ri­ty pro­ce­dures, just before they board­ed the plane they were hauled off for ‘questioning’ by some bone­head­ed spe­cial-branch red­neck. After being released with­out charge they’d missed their flight, & were left with 2 expen­sive non-refund­able tick­ets. Ms Pritchard, from Cardiff, said:
“Why was the lug­gage for­ward­ed to the aero­plane, our e‑tickets issued & our names put through the com­put­er with no prob­lems? Why was it only when we went to the board­ing gate & they looked at Sadi’s pass­port, were we ques­tioned & detained?
Why, if we were a risk, was our lug­gage tak­en off the plane one hour & 45 min­utes after it had been put on? We feel we were delib­er­ate­ly stopped from board­ing the plane, that it was racist & because we are Mus­lims. As I am white, British & this is the coun­try of all my ances­tors, I feel I am pay­ing a price for mar­ry­ing a for­eign­er. What hap­pened to free­dom & rights?â€?
The answer is sim­ple. Free­dom & rights go out the win­dow when blood-thirsty, ambi­tious, mass-mur­der­ing politi­cians pass dra­con­ian anti-ter­ror laws that give more & more pow­ers to small-mind­ed racist local pigs who know they can get away with shit­ty abus­es of pow­er like this on a day-to-day basis with­out reproach. We’re edg­ing towards a police state one nasty lit­tle bit of leg­is­la­tion at a time, & what free­dom we ever had is being erod­ed more & more in the name of fake ‘democracy’ & ‘security’.

From our cor­re­spon­dent in… Pales­tine
Israel occu­pied the Pales­tin­ian ter­ri­to­ries of the West Bank & the Gaza strip in the war of 1967 between Israel & the Arab states. Since then Israel has main­tained its’ mil­i­tary occu­pa­tion, sub­ject­ing Pales­tini­ans to Israeli mil­i­tary law (far harsh­er than civil­ian law) & estab­lish­ing set­tle­ments to take more land for Israeli use thus frag­ment­ing the ter­ri­to­ry of any future Pales­tin­ian state, effec­tive­ly mak­ing it unwork­able.
The occu­pa­tion costs $12 bil­lion annu­al­ly. It would not be sus­tain­able with­out inter­na­tion­al sup­port for Israel. 80% of US for­eign aid goes to Israel — $8 bil­lion per year. In 2005 Israeli PM Ariel Sharon orches­trat­ed the ‘dis­en­gage­ment’ — with­draw­al of all 9,000 Israeli set­tlers who lived in Gaza. But since then, more than that num­ber of new set­tlers have moved into the West Bank, & the absence of Israelis liv­ing in Gaza has left the Israeli army free to con­duct inva­sions & airstrikes, dev­as­tat­ing Pales­tin­ian infra­struc­ture & killing peo­ple dai­ly.
In 2003 Israel start­ed build­ing its’ ‘sep­a­ra­tion bar­ri­er’ (or ‘apartheid wall’) between Israel & the West Bank. It cuts 25 kilo­me­tres into the West Bank in some places, stretch­ing around most set­tle­ments, steal­ing land & water sources & sep­a­rat­ing Pales­tin­ian vil­lages from each oth­er or their land. Some, like Azzoun Atme, are com­plete­ly sur­round­ed by the wall with res­i­dents only able to leave & enter their vil­lage by pass­ing through a ter­mi­nal manned by Israeli sol­diers who turn them back at whim. Vis­it­ing there was like vis­it­ing a prison — being searched & scru­ti­nised by sol­diers behind bul­let­proof glass. Israel jus­ti­fies this wall, like all the oth­er bru­tal­i­ties & humil­i­a­tions it sub­jects Pales­tini­ans to, as nec­es­sary to pro­tect Israel against sui­cide bomb­ings & attacks by home-made ‘Qas­sam’ rock­ets. But it was obvi­ous to me that the dai­ly cru­el­ty & vio­lence towards Pales­tini­ans is much more like­ly to cre­ate frus­tra­tion & rage which lead to vio­lence. This log­ic of pre­vent­ing ‘ter­ror­ism’ also fails to account for the route of the wall, steal­ing Pales­tin­ian land & resources at every turn.
Much of my time in Pales­tine was dur­ing the olive har­vest. Olives are Palestine’s largest prod­uct. Many farm­ers have trou­ble access­ing their land. It could be on the ‘wrong’ side of the wall, or close to an Israeli set­tle­ment. Israeli & for­eign vol­un­teers accom­pa­ny farm­ers to doc­u­ment & inter­vene in attacks by Israeli set­tlers or harass­ment by the army. I saw sol­diers chas­ing a fam­i­ly off their land close to an Israeli check­point. Anoth­er vol­un­teer was with a fam­i­ly who had a group of young Israeli set­tlers throw rocks at them while sol­diers stood by. This is typ­i­cal dur­ing olive har­vest sea­son.
I saw in Pales­tine a soci­ety crip­pled by forty years of increas­ing­ly bru­tal Israeli occu­pa­tion, & now fur­ther suf­fer­ing due to the severe eco­nom­ic cri­sis caused by with­draw­al of inter­na­tion­al aid to the Pales­tin­ian Author­i­ty since Hamas was elect­ed in Jan­u­ary (moral of that sto­ry: democ­ra­cy is great, as long as you elect who the USA & the EU want). Hope is in short sup­ply, as every­one strug­gles to sur­vive. Activism con­tin­ues, but many have learned that demon­strat­ing very often leads to vio­lent reprisals by the Israeli army, & lit­tle if any pos­i­tive change. But as our neigh­bour Issa point­ed out, in Pales­tine, dai­ly life IS resis­tance, & as long as he is there, he has hope.
If you can see the injus­tice of this sit­u­a­tion get informed & involved! Info: eisoj.livejournal.com or  eisoj@care2.com
Check out: www.breakingthesilence.co.il www.palsolidarity.org & www.iwps.info

NHS: Not Free for All
While the NHS was set up to pro­vide health care for all based on need & not an abil­i­ty to pay, this is not the case for us all.
In April 2004 the Gov­ern­ment tight­ened up restric­tions on free health care to ‘overseas vis­i­tors’, in response to the per­ceived threat to the NHS of peo­ple com­ing to the UK specif­i­cal­ly for free med­ical treat­ment. In fact, as point­ed out by a 2006 Refugee Coun­cil report, there is no evi­dence to indi­cate the scale of such ‘health touris­m’ & no spe­cif­ic exam­ples of peo­ple migrat­ing to the UK specif­i­cal­ly for free health care. Accord­ing to the Refugee Coun­cil, the main fac­tors affect­ing the choice of coun­try where indi­vid­u­als seek asy­lum is their lan­guage, fam­i­ly con­nec­tions or his­tor­i­cal con­nec­tions between their coun­try & the UK. Also, many asy­lum seek­ers sim­ply do not have a choice of where they go as increas­ing­ly tighter bor­der con­trols mean they may be smug­gled into a coun­try. It there­fore seems ridicu­lous to sug­gest that asy­lum seek­ers come to the UK to receive free health care, when what it is they have come for is to escape war, tor­ture & per­se­cu­tion.
Under Gov­ern­ment leg­is­la­tion, refused asy­lum seek­ers are not gen­er­al­ly eli­gi­ble for free hos­pi­tal treat­ment. While imme­di­ate­ly nec­es­sary treat­ment in order to save life can be giv­en, the recov­ery of the charge will be pur­sued as far as pos­si­ble via invoic­es, threat­en­ing let­ters & even debt col­lec­tion agen­cies. For exam­ple, a failed asy­lum seek­er from Roma­nia who had stom­ach can­cer was billed £1085 for an oper­a­tion & was refused radio­ther­a­py until he could pay. Failed asy­lum seek­ers have to pay for things like treat­ments for can­cer, dia­betes & HIV & mater­ni­ty care.
With such leg­is­la­tion, the UK Gov­ern­ment con­tin­ues its bar­bar­ic treat­ment of those seek­ing asy­lum & uses them as scape­goats for its own fail­ings.

no id cards!
Are you inter­est­ed in being part of a group of peo­ple in the Swansea/Carmarthen area com­mit­ted to resist­ing the nation­al ID data­base? As part of the nation­al iden­ti­ty scheme, Swansea is set to be one of the sites for an ID inter­ro­ga­tion cen­tre, where peo­ple in the area will need to report to in order to be inter­viewed, fin­ger-print­ed & iris-scanned as part of reg­is­tra­tion for the nation­al ID data­base. One of the first things the group can do is raise objec­tions to the ID cen­tre through the plan­ning sys­tem. Going for­ward, the group can work on direct action strate­gies for how best to sup­port the resis­tance to the nation­al ID data­base, in con­junc­tion with the work of oth­er Defy-ID groups & the cam­paigns organ­ised by No2ID. If you are inter­est­ed, please con­tact Dominic on  dfrancocci2@yahoo.co.uk or 07718 968835.

BURBERRY CLOSURE
It was a mis­er­able Christ­mas for the three hun­dred work­ers at the Burber­ry fac­to­ry in Tre­orchy, Rhond­da. Not only are they about to lose their jobs, but boss Eve­lyn Suszko (respon­si­ble for Lau­ra Ashley’s igno­min­ious with­draw­al from Wales) rubbed salt into wounds by award­ing work­ers a scarf & £30 vouch­ers to spend in the local Burber­ry shop, which hap­pens to be in Lon­don. Clo­sure is set for the end of March 2007 due to Burberry’s deci­sion to move pro­duc­tion to Chi­na where they can cut costs from £10 a polo shirt to £2 whilst main­tain­ing a retail price of £80. Gar­ments have been man­u­fac­tured at the fac­to­ry for sev­en­ty years. Demon­stra­tions have been held out­side Burberry’s Lon­don out­let. As Burber­ry pre­pares to announce increased prof­its of £200 mil­lion, a union offi­cial has come up with an idea: rather than rip up the £30 vouch­ers, he’s urged the work­force to spend them in the Lon­don store & then burn any pur­chas­es out­side the shop as a mark of protest. Per­haps set­ting fire to scarves & hats inside the shop would be more effec­tive?

In the ear­ly hours of Sun­day 19th Novem­ber, items were stolen from a police van that was parked on Bryn Road, Swansea. The police had been called to a large par­ty after com­plaints about noise lev­els were made by neigh­bours . When the police went in to break up the fun they left their van doors unlocked, allow­ing peo­ple to get inside & steal a police coat & a police note­book! What hap­pened to“Keep it Safe Keep it Hid­den Keep it Lockedâ€? boys?

south wales Hunt Sabo­teurs Update
Since the start of main sea­son South Wales Sabo­teurs have been pay­ing vis­its to the Cotswold Vale (our old favourites), & as nor­mal found them hunt­ing ille­gal­ly, the bleat­ing hunt were soon on the phone to the cops & again as nor­mal it was like old friends meet­ing, “what! the antis are in the area? We’ll be there now so you can car­ry on killing”.
South Wales Sabs have also had away days with the Ted­worth, (who were kept on the run all-day & packed up ear­ly), South Here­ford­shire, Mon­mouthshire, Curre & the Pen­trych on Box­ing day.
Despite the cry­ing & bleat­ing by the Coun­try­side Alliance two years ago, & to the sur­prise of mil­lions of com­pas­sion­ate peo­ple (not), noth­ing has changed! because they’re all still hunt­ing as nor­mal, so don’t be fooled (as if you could!), by media lies, get off your back­side & do some­thing about it because the boys in blue sure aren’t!!

Gagged! can be found in all sorts of strange places around south wales as well as every social cen­tre & rad­i­cal book­shop in the UK. If there’s not a pile of gagged in the cor­ner of your favourite pub, club, cafe, hair­dressers, tat­tooists, record, book, head or any­thing else shop, get in touch so you can take a pile in your­self! If you want to sub­scribe to the e‑version send an email to  gagged-subscribe@lists.riseup.net. More info online at lists.riseup.net/www/info/gagged. 5000 copies are print­ed per issue plus sev­er­al thou­sand are read online. We’re always in need of more help in pro­duc­tion & dis­tri­b­u­tion. Send any arti­cles, pic­tures, reports, diary dates or offers to help to  gwentanarchists@yahoo.co.uk

Cardiff Anar­chist Net­work (CAN) is a col­lec­tive of peo­ple who want to pur­sue polit­i­cal demon­stra­tions through direct action. There is no mem­ber­ship, no lead­ers, just like mind­ed indi­vid­u­als. Email:  cardiffanarchists@riseup.net

Gwent Anar­chists are like-mind­ed indi­vid­u­als believ­ing in auton­o­my, respect & jus­tice; against all forms of exploita­tion & big­otry. Aim­ing to increase the knowl­edge of & cre­ate a resis­tance to gov­ern­ments & big busi­ness abus­ing peo­ple & the earth. Email:  gwentanarchists@yahoo.co.uk

RCT Anar­chists is an autonomous group of free-think­ing indi­vid­u­als who reject cap­i­tal­ism & resist state con­trol through non-vio­lent direct action. We work towards the cre­ation of a world based on jus­tice & free­dom. Email:  rctanarchists@riseup.net

No Bor­ders South Wales organ­is­es on migra­tion issues & acts to break down bound­aries; racial, cul­tur­al, gen­der, sex­u­al, class & polit­i­cal that divide us. Email:  noborderswales@riseup.net

South Wales Against the G8 (SWAG8) is a coali­tion of groups wish­ing to mobilise against this year’s G8 Sum­mit both in Ger­many & in the UK. Email:  swageight@yahoo.co.uk

Peo­ples Autonomous Des­ti­na­tion (PAD) aims to cre­ate phys­i­cal space in Cardiff for groups & indi­vid­u­als who can­not or will not work with­in the con­straints of gov­ern­men­tal or cor­po­rate con­trol. Email:  thepad@riseup.net Phone: 07910973876 Web: www.thepad.org.uk

Cardiff Ris­ing Tide is a grass­roots group com­mit­ted to tak­ing action & build­ing a move­ment against cli­mate change. Email:  Cardiffclimateaction@hotmail.com

South Wales Ani­mal Rights Net­work (SWARN) work­ing for ani­mal lib­er­a­tion Email:  swarn@yahoo.co.uk Phone: 07903677111

South Wales Hunt Sabs sav­ing ani­mal­s’ lives now, active­ly sab­o­tag­ing blood­sports. New­port Post: PO Box 70, New­port NP20 5XX . Phone: 0770815642 Swansea Email:  swansea_ar@webtribe.net Post: PO Box 7, Swansea, SA9 2YE Phone: 01792475092

Keep up to date with news from all over the world like the sort you find in Gagged! online at a vari­ety of web­sites. Here are a few that we’d rec­om­mend: www.schnews.org.uk www.indymedia.org.uk www.libcom.org www.anarkismo.net . www.infoshop.org

Diary Dates

Jan­u­ary

13th – Launch/Benefit for RCT (Rhond­da Cynon Taff) Anar­chists — KilnAboy, Tracey Cur­tis, Kyshera & Cos­mo at Clwb Y Bont, 85a Stryd Taf, Ponypridd. 7.30pm, veg­an buf­fet. £3
13th – 14th — Camp for Cli­mate Action Nation­al Gath­er­ing — to plan the next Cli­mate Camp. At the Com­mon Place, 23–25 Wharf Street, Leeds, LS2 7EQ. www.climatecamp.org.uk
15th – CAN meet­ing. Upstairs in the Glam­or­gan Staff Club, West­gate Street, Cardiff (oppo­site Gate 3 of the Mil­len­ni­um Sta­di­um). Fort­night­ly.
19th — 20th — Ris­ing Tide Nation­al Meet­ing. Lon­don. www.risingtide.org.uk
22nd — Gwent Anar­chists meet­ing. 8.30pm in The Murenger, High Street, New­port (in the snug). Fort­night­ly.
27th — Social Cen­tres Gath­er­ing. 1in12 Club, Albion Street, off Ful­ton Street, Brad­ford, BD1 www.1in12.com
28th — G8 Mobil­i­sa­tion Meet­ing. Sumac Cen­tre, 245 Glad­stone Street, Not­ting­ham NG76HX www.dissent.org.uk
29th — Phone In Sick Day — Prof. Cliff Arnall of Cardiff Uni­ver­si­ty says this is the most depress­ing day of the year! phone in sick! www.thesicknote.com
29th — CAN meet­ing.

FEBRUARY
5th — 2 local activists report back their expe­ri­ences in Pales­tine, plus films, & food. River­side Com­mu­ni­ty Cen­tre. 7–10pm
5th – Gwent Anar­chists meet­ing.
9th-11th — G8 plan­ning meet­ing, War­saw.
10th — Demo to Close All Deten­tion Cen­tres & Stop Depor­ta­tions. 11.30am Har­mondsworth & Colnbrook Deten­tion Cen­tres. noborderslondon.blogspot.com
11th — David Rovics & Atti­la The Stock­bro­ker. Dempseys, Cas­tle Street, Cardiff A ben­e­fit for the Pales­tine Sol­i­dar­i­ty Cam­paign £5
12th – CAN meet­ing.
15th — Screen­ing of ‘Iraq for Sale’ 8.00pm Chap­ter Arts Cen­tre
19th – Gwent Anar­chists meet­ing.
24th — No Tri­dent / Troops Out of Iraq Nation­al Demon­stra­tion. 12 noon — cen­tral Lon­don www.cnduk.org
26th — CAN meet­ing.

MARCH
3rd – Anar­chist Book­fair, the Teach­ers Club, 36 Par­nell square, Dublin. www.wsm.ie/anarchistbookfair
5th – Gwent Anar­chists meet­ing.
19th — Glob­al Day Of Action against the “War On Ter­rorâ€?, on the 4th anniver­sary of the inva­sion of Iraq.

gwentanarchists@yahoo.co.uk
http://southwalesanarchists.org