Shut Down the Corporations: Report from F29 actions against ALEC

29th Feb­ru­ary 2012

29th Feb­ru­ary 2012

Ris­ing Tide North Amer­i­ca sent out this report today about the Shut Down the Cor­po­ra­tions call to action: “#F29 is off to bang this morn­ing with actions across the coun­try. big props to our Ris­ing Tide & Occu­py com­rades in Port­land for ini­ti­at­ing this great day of action.

The tar­get of the day is the Amer­i­can Leg­isla­tive Exchange Com­mis­sion, or ALEC, & their mem­ber cor­po­ra­tions. ALEC is the shad­owy front group that has been push­ing a right wing agen­da on every­thing from labor to cli­mate change.

Here’s some updates:

-Occu­py­LA is blockad­ing a mas­sive Wal-Mart Dis­tro Cen­ter
-Occu­py Wall Street had a teach-in with Rolling Stone jour­nal­ist Matt Taib­bi & is see­ing march­es to Pfiz­er, block­ades at Bank of Amer­i­ca & lots of heavy hand­ed police repres­sion (shock­ing, we know)
-Occu­py­DC is blockad­ing Monsanto’s offices
-Actions are step­ping off in Ari­zona, Salt Lake City, Con­necti­cut, Hat­ties­burg, MS, Far­go, ND, Lake­land, FL, Tam­pa, FL, and Win­ston-Salem, NC.
-Today at 1130, Occu­py­Port­land has orga­nized a mass march to vis­it all ALEC offices in the city.

here’s the Glob­al Live Blog if you want to keep up

Great arti­cle this morn­ing on Moth­er Jones

…sol­i­dar­i­ty, RTNA News”

And check out this video of a block­ade of G4S secu­ri­ty com­pa­ny today in Tuc­son, AZ: http://youtu.be/AB5MZDdjHck

Sea Shepherd Ploy Leaves Two Frustrated Japanese Whaling Captains Looking Silly at Sea

28.2.12

Since Feb­ru­ary 22nd, The Sea Shep­herd ship, Steve Irwin, has led a Japan­ese har­poon ves­sel and the Japan­ese whal­ing fleet secu­ri­ty ves­sel on a mer­ry wild goose chase away from the Japan­ese whal­ing fleet.

28.2.12

Since Feb­ru­ary 22nd, The Sea Shep­herd ship, Steve Irwin, has led a Japan­ese har­poon ves­sel and the Japan­ese whal­ing fleet secu­ri­ty ves­sel on a mer­ry wild goose chase away from the Japan­ese whal­ing fleet.

With the Sea Shep­herd ship, Bob Bark­er, ful­ly refu­eled and head­ing back to the South­ern Ocean to hunt down the Japan­ese whal­ing fleet, the Sea Shep­herd ship, Steve Irwin, head­ed north for Mac­quar­ie Island under the ruse of a fuel trans­fer with the Bob Bark­er.

Sea Shep­herd had declared that the Bob Bark­er would refu­el the Steve Irwin and that both ships would return to chase the Japan­ese whal­ing fleet until the end of the sea­son. The inten­tion, how­ev­er, was for the ful­ly fueled Bob Bark­er to return to the South­ern Ocean alone. The Steve Irwin’s job was to decoy the two Japan­ese ships away from the Bob Bark­er.

The two Japan­ese ships fol­lowed and ille­gal­ly entered the Aus­tralian Eco­nom­ic Exclu­sion Zone where they have been pro­hib­it­ed by order of the Aus­tralian Fed­er­al Court and the Gov­ern­ment of Aus­tralia.

The Yushin Maru No. 3's hull obliterated with black and red paint. Photo: Billy DangerThe Yushin Maru No. 3’s hull oblit­er­at­ed with black and red paint. After a day at Mac­quar­ie Island, the Steve Irwin made the move north­ward to Auck­land Island, New Zealand as a change of plans to refu­el with the Bob Bark­er. The Yushin Maru No. 3 and the Shonan Maru No. 2 fol­lowed.

Mean­while, the Bob Bark­er was putting hun­dreds of miles between them and the two ships wait­ing for the refu­el­ing oper­a­tion that we nev­er intend­ed to actu­al­ly hap­pen.

The Bob Bark­er will con­tin­ue to chase the Japan­ese whal­ing fleet for the remain­der of the sea­son, to the end of March if need be, while the Steve Irwin returns to Aus­tralia.

“We have placed the Japan­ese secu­ri­ty ship, the Shonan Maru No. 2, and the har­poon ves­sel, the Yushin Maru No. 3, a great dis­tance from the whal­ing oper­a­tions and the fac­to­ry ship Nis­shin Maru. It could take them more than a week to return. It was a very suc­cess­ful ploy that has allowed the Bob Bark­er to be free of its tail and to knock out two of the Japan­ese ships from the game for more than two weeks,” said Cap­tain Paul Wat­son.

Cap­tain Peter Ham­marst­edt, of Swe­den, is now in com­mand of the Bob Bark­er. He replaced Cap­tain Alex Cor­nelis­sen who need­ed to return to his duties as Sea Shep­herd direc­tor of oper­a­tions for the Gala­pa­gos.

“The Japan­ese ships fell for the bait, fol­low­ing hard on our heels first to Mac­quar­ie Island and then onto Auck­land Island. They have wast­ed tons of fuel and weeks of time to accom­plish noth­ing more than to escort the Steve Irwin back north. Now they have no one to fol­low any­more and the Bob Bark­er is free to con­tin­ue the chase,” said Cap­tain Wat­son.

With only three weeks left in the sea­son, the whalers are run­ning out of time fast. They have not had much time, or the har­poon ves­sels, avail­able to real­ize their quo­ta.

“Because we lost our scout ves­sel, the Brigitte Bar­dot, we have been hand­i­capped this sea­son. But despite that, we have chased this out­law fleet more than 16,000 miles from west to east and from north to south. I am con­fi­dent that we have severe­ly impact­ed their kill quo­ta once again.”

Mass Action: The Big-Six Energy Monopoly

Thurs­day 3rd May 2012
Meet in cen­tral Lon­don, details to be announced

The Big Six ener­gy com­pa­nies: British Gas, EDF, E.ON, RWE pow­er, Scot­tish & South­ern and Scot­tish Pow­er con­trol 99% of our ener­gy sup­ply — mak­ing obscene prof­its from burn­ing fos­sil fuels, trash­ing the plan­et and push­ing peo­ple into fuel pover­ty.

Let’s take back the pow­er.

Thurs­day 3rd May 2012
Meet in cen­tral Lon­don, details to be announced

The Big Six ener­gy com­pa­nies: British Gas, EDF, E.ON, RWE pow­er, Scot­tish & South­ern and Scot­tish Pow­er con­trol 99% of our ener­gy sup­ply — mak­ing obscene prof­its from burn­ing fos­sil fuels, trash­ing the plan­et and push­ing peo­ple into fuel pover­ty.

Let’s take back the pow­er.

On Thurs­day 3rd May, as the Exec­u­tives of the Big Six meet at the UK Ener­gy Sum­mit in cen­tral Lon­don, join Cli­mate Jus­tice Col­lec­tive in a mass action for ener­gy democ­ra­cy and against cor­po­rate con­trol and cen­tralised pow­er sys­tems.

The more heads involved in organ­is­ing this, the bet­ter it will be — so come along to our next organ­is­ing meet­ing:
When: Sat­ur­day; 3rd March: 11am – 5pm
Where: Green­peace, Canon­bury Vil­las, Lon­don, N1 2PN. Clos­est tube: Angel
or High­bury & Isling­ton.

*Crash Space & Kids* Please email climatejusticecollective@gmail.com if you’ll be need­ing crash space for Fri­day and/or Sat­ur­day night. Also let us know if you’ll be bring­ing along any of the next gen­er­a­tion of move­ment builders 🙂 Their ages would be help­ful to know as well.

http://climatejusticecollective.wordpress.com/

FRACK MOB 2

*Demo: 14th March*

Organised by *Frack Off <http://www.frack-off.org.uk/>*


On the 14-15th of March, The Marriott Hotel Regents Park is playing host

to another orgy of misinformation and industry propaganda, all in the name

of shafting the planet for profit. Let’s not disappoint! Fracking



*Demo: 14th March*


Organised by *Frack Off <http://www.frack-off.org.uk/>*



On the 14-15th of March, The Marriott Hotel Regents Park is playing host
to another orgy of misinformation and industry propaganda, all in the name
of shafting the planet for profit. Let’s not disappoint! Fracking
investors and the fracking companies themselves will be there. This is a
fantastic opportunity to expose the greenwash and show investors and
backers how dangerous and unpopular it is.



Wednesday, 14 March 2012, 3-8pm, 128 King Henrys Road, NW3 3ST London.



More details TBC - join the 'Frack Off' facebook event



https://www.facebook.com/events/165452203557945



to keep updated!

Hinkley Barnstormers Eviction Imminent ! Help Needed !

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707768_photo_1.jpg

 

 JOIN THE HINKLEY BARNSTORMERS BEFORE THEIR EVICTION !

On 27th Feb­ru­ary at the Roy­al Courts of Jus­tice, Lon­don, EDF won a pos­s­e­sion order against anti-nuclear activists who are occu­py­ing a barn on the pro­posed new site for a nuclear reac­tor at Hink­ley Point.

The barn has been suc­cess­ful­ly occu­pied for over two weeks now but the evic­tion could come at any time in the next few days.

The occu­piers are wel­com­ing any one who wants to come and help dis­man­tle the camp. There is lots of food avail­able and a cosy and con­vivial atmos­phere to be enjoyed ! Please come !

PHONE : 0793 392 0425  or 0753 094 7554

The activists will be cel­e­brat­ing  what the camp had achieved in terms of rais­ing aware­ness of Hink­ley to the nation­al lev­el , as many peo­ple do not know that the gov­ern­ment is plan­ning to build new nuclear reac­tors, they want to slip these plans in “under the radar” to avoid a prop­er pub­lic debate tak­ing place, like there has been in Italy and Ger­many, in the wake of Fukushi­ma.

Nuclear pow­er is a cat­a­stroph­ic choice for Britain’s ener­gy future. A part from the fact that nuclear pow­er is still very fos­sil fuel reliant and won’t make much of a dent in the car­bon emmis­sions: If Hink­ley C is built, it won’t be in oper­a­tion until 2023 at the ear­li­est ! Also, nuclear is a bot­tom­less pit of expense to the tax pay­er, all that mon­ey will be divert­ed away from invest­ment in safe and sus­tain­able alter­na­tives.

There is no such thing as safe nuclear pow­er, prob­lems occur in the reac­tors for inu­mer­able rea­sons, includ­ing human error, and once every 12 years or so there is a major dis­as­ter. There is also the ever loom­ing prob­lem of nuclear waste, Britain already has enough to fill 5 Albert Halls and no where long term to put it. Only an insane government/industry would want to make more.

After Fukushi­ma, many coun­tries are say­ing enough is enough, Nuclear pow­er is fin­ished. It’s a dinosaur of the 20th cen­tu­ry and leads to the pro­lif­er­a­tion of nuclear weapons. It’s time we said the same !

Please show your sol­i­dar­i­ty and go to the camp for some fun !

If you can’t make it to the camp, there’s anoth­er chance for you to show your oppo­si­tion to new nuclear on 10- 11 March at Hink­ley Point for the Sur­round and Block­ade action. Details below :

Coach tick­ets are avail­able to take you to the Sur­round action on 10 March  from Bris­tol CND:

secretarybristolcnd@gmail.com

For more infor­ma­tion about the 10–11 March see:

www.stopnewnuclear.org.uk

Take the Flour Back — a mass action against Genetically Modified wheat

Take the flour back!
Sunday 27th May 2012

Public day of action against the Rothamsted genetically modified wheat trial.

 

Take the flour back!
Sunday 27th May 2012

Public day of action against the Rothamsted genetically modified wheat trial.

 

Bak­ers, farm­ers, grow­ers, allot­ment hold­ers, sci­en­tists, bee­keep­ers, and peo­ple who eat food are turn­ing out to voice their oppo­si­tion to GM crops com­ing back to the UK.
Meet Sun­day 27th May, at 12 noon, in Rotham­st­ed, Harp­en­den, Herts. Or take your own action in your own way, at your own time. Togeth­er we can stop this tri­al.

Cow genes on toast anyone? No thanks!

What’s up with the tri­al?

It could be dangerous

This tri­al is test­ing a brand-new syn­thet­i­cal­ly-con­struct­ed ‘fake’ gene that is ‘most sim­i­lar to one found in a cow’. This is the first use of syn­thet­ic genes in the UK, and a con­cern­ing use of ani­mal genes in plants.

It’s not wanted

Even Amer­i­ca has aban­doned attempts to com­mer­cialise GM wheat because there is no mar­ket for it. Biotech com­pa­ny BASF recent­ly backed out of Europe because no-one want­ed to buy GM food.

Once it flowers, it’s here to stay

The tri­al is hap­pen­ing in the open air, mean­ing that when it starts to flower it can cross con­t­a­m­i­nate oth­er wheat crops and wild grass­es. This is a real threat. In Cana­da there is no organ­ic oilseed rape left because all the farms have been cross-con­t­a­m­i­nat­ed with GM rape.

Reclaim the Fields Spring Gathering 2012 — details & updates

@ The Wilder­ness Cen­tre, Mitcheldean, For­est of Dean, Glouces­ter­shire, GL17 0HA

The first Reclaim the Fields Gath­er­ing of the year will be tak­ing place this March at the Wilder­ness Cen­tre in the For­est of Dean.

Pre-Gath­er­ing Help need­ed:

@ The Wilder­ness Cen­tre, Mitcheldean, For­est of Dean, Glouces­ter­shire, GL17 0HA

The first Reclaim the Fields Gath­er­ing of the year will be tak­ing place this March at the Wilder­ness Cen­tre in the For­est of Dean.

Pre-Gath­er­ing Help need­ed:

Any­one inter­est­ed in help­ing out with the running/ set­ting up of the event, should come to the Wilder­ness asap. If you’re inter­est­ed in giv­ing a talk, or demon­strat­ing a skill — get in con­tact, or just show up and arrange to use one of the “spaces” avail­able with one of the Pro­tect The Wilder­ness Crew.

The pro­vi­sion­al timetable includes:

Thurs­day 8th:

*Intro­duc­tion to Reclaim the Fields — where we’ve come from and recent action, includ­ing feed­back from the Euro­pean Gath­er­ing.
* Wilder­ness Cen­tre intro­duc­tion & house­keep­ing
*Open Intro­duc­tions; intro­duce your self & your projects & con­tin­ue net­work­ing with our notice­board

The remain­der of the day is designed around open spaces, giv­ing peo­ple a chance to work & com­mu­ni­cate around these sug­ges­tions so far:

*WWOLF (woof­ing with teeth) and Reclaim the Field Trips
*Seed Sov­er­eign­ty & grow­er-to-grow­er seed dis­tri­b­u­tion net­works
*Car­rots ses­sion e.g. RTF inter­nal structure/sharing work­loads
*Using the food sov­er­eign­ty prin­ci­ples as a strate­gic frame­work — (in a UK con­text)
*How to organ­ise & main­tain effec­tive land occu­pa­tions
*Com­post­ing gen­der
*Plan­ning for Inter­na­tion­al Peas­ants Day of Strug­gle on April 17th
*Legal options for access­ing land
*Pro­tect­ing bee pop­u­la­tions

Fri­day 9th:

*Ses­sion on gen­er­al Reclaim the Fields strat­e­gy and focus­es for 2012
Work­shops and talks:
*An intro­duc­tion to land rights
*His­to­ry of Land rights strug­gles in the For­est of Dean

Fol­lowed by a con­sen­sus based gueril­la gar­den­ing action… remains open to sug­ges­tions!
(ideas so far…)
*Food for­est, in an aban­doned quar­ry
*Care home for the elder­ly
* Clear-felled Forestry land
* Vic­to­ri­an walled gar­den

Sat­ur­day 10th:

Pro­tect The Wilder­ness open skill-share day!
Seed swap, Com­mu­ni­ty bring and share.
Gar­den­ing the organ­ic com­mu­ni­ty gar­den, and walled gar­den.
Music and feast­ing!

Not for­get­ting gar­den­ing, char­coal burn­ing, bak­ing in the cob oven, seed­bomb mak­ing, cob­bing the round-house, and chop­ping wood through-out!

£5 sug­gest­ed dona­tion per day, no one will be turned away for lack of funds.

Items to bring:
Warm clothes, two sets (if you mind being mud­dy)
bed­ding, camp­ing mats
tools for g‑gardening [spades, forks, mat­tocks, bill­hooks]
Instru­ments, danc­ing shoes,
seeds for seed­bombs,
home-grown veg, pick­les, jams, whole foods

More info about the Wilder­ness Cen­tre: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Protect-the-Wilderness-Centre-Forest-of-Dean/321890141176064
Who to con­tact for more infor­ma­tion: use the RTF UK email list or email frankynecklace@yahoo.co.uk

Gourds work be done,

Pro­tect The Wilder­ness,
Reclaim the Fields!

Russian Green Resistance strikes against deforestation

24.02.2012 – The group of rad­i­cal envi­ron­men­tal­ists “Green Resis­tance” has burned down a bull­doz­er involved in defor­esta­tion in Podol­sk dis­trict of Moscow region. In their com­mu­niqué com­rades call every­body who cares about nature to join their activ­i­ty of pro-nature direct action and sab­o­tage.

24.02.2012 – The group of rad­i­cal envi­ron­men­tal­ists “Green Resis­tance” has burned down a bull­doz­er involved in defor­esta­tion in Podol­sk dis­trict of Moscow region. In their com­mu­niqué com­rades call every­body who cares about nature to join their activ­i­ty of pro-nature direct action and sab­o­tage.

Sizewell Camp 2012

Skill Share, Net­work­ing and Protest
Pow­er for the Peo­ple — Not Prof­its for the Few

Fri­day 20th (from 6pm) – Sun­day 22nd April

Skill Share, Net­work­ing and Protest
Pow­er for the Peo­ple — Not Prof­its for the Few

Fri­day 20th (from 6pm) – Sun­day 22nd April

Spend a sun­ny week­end camp­ing on the beach at Sizewell and learn­ing about the wor­ry­ing plans for a new nuclear pow­er sta­tion at the site. Come and show your oppo­si­tion to nuclear pow­er and your sup­port for alter­na­tive, sus­tain­able ener­gy solu­tions. The week­end includes a protest at the nuclear pow­er sta­tion entrance, work­shops and skill shares, wood­land and beach walks, deli­cious veg­an grub, and net­work­ing. Now is the time to take action against nuclear new build – come join us to say ‘Nuclear Pow­er? –
No Thanks!’

The Camp — Fri­day 20th — Sun­day 22nd April 2012

Demon­stra­tion, Sat­ur­day 21st April, 12noon, at the entrance to Sizewell A and B
A demon­stra­tion out­side the gates of Sizewell, oppos­ing nuclear pow­er and nuclear new build, and sup­port­ing sus­tain­able alter­na­tives.

Work­shops and Walks
Sat­ur­day and Sun­day, at the Camp

A num­ber of work­shops have been pro­posed, includ­ing: ‘Nuclear Pow­er — A Ratio­nal Response to Cli­mate Change and Ener­gy Secu­ri­ty?’, ‘Nuclear Physics for Begin­ners’, ‘Extreme Ener­gy — Scrap­ing the Bot­tom of the Bar­rel’, ‘Alter­na­tive Ener­gy’, as well as guid­ed walks along the beach and into the woods EdF intends to destroy.

Cher­nobyl Remem­brance
Sun­day 22nd, 1pm at the Camp

Please let us know (con­tact details below) if you are think­ing of com­ing, so we have an idea of num­bers for cater­ing, etc.

Peo­ple are also need­ed to help with camp set up on Fri­day, and ‘tat down’ — tak­ing down the camp — on Mon­day morn­ing, so please let us know if you are able to help out with either of those.

Email: camp [at] sizewellcamp.org.uk
Web: http://sizewellcamp.org.uk
Phone: 07894467356

Earth First! makes a mess of SITLA tar sands plans in Utah

Yes­ter­day, Feb­ru­ary 20, the Earth First! 2012 Orga­niz­ers Con­fer­ence & Win­ter Ren­dezvous cul­mi­nat­ed in a row­dy demon­stra­tion out­side the School and Insti­tu­tion­al Trust Lands Admin­is­tra­tion (SITLA) offices in down­town Salt Lake City. Earth First! activists staged their protest with local orga­niz­ers from Utah Tar Sands Resis­tance and Canyon Coun­try Ris­ing Tide.

Yes­ter­day, Feb­ru­ary 20, the Earth First! 2012 Orga­niz­ers Con­fer­ence & Win­ter Ren­dezvous cul­mi­nat­ed in a row­dy demon­stra­tion out­side the School and Insti­tu­tion­al Trust Lands Admin­is­tra­tion (SITLA) offices in down­town Salt Lake City. Earth First! activists staged their protest with local orga­niz­ers from Utah Tar Sands Resis­tance and Canyon Coun­try Ris­ing Tide. The offices were closed for Pres­i­dents’ Day, but a clear (and messy) mes­sage was left at the doorstep—a mock oil spill accom­pa­nied by a mur­al read­ing “Hey SITLA: Tar Sands Out­ta Utah!” 

The project would lease school trust lands for tar sands extrac­tion in the Book Cliffs area, direct­ly impact­ing PR Springs, a site which is also uti­lized for camp­ing and recre­ation.

“Destruc­tion of edu­ca­tion trust lands through tar sands min­ing is con­trary to the man­date of this agency, which requires them to main­tain the land for the long term,” said Mark Pur­dy of Utah Tar Sands Resis­tance.

An arti­cle in the Desert News stat­ed: “The pro­posed min­ing oper­a­tion would occu­py a 213-acre site in the East Tava­putts Plateau strad­dling the bor­ders of Uin­tah and Grand coun­ties.  An ore pro­cess­ing facil­i­ty would accom­mo­date up to 3,500 tons of ore per day in the pro­duc­tion of bitu­men. The extrac­tion process would require 1.5 bar­rels to 2 bar­rels of water per bar­rel of bitu­men pro­duced… The com­pa­ny will have to post a recla­ma­tion bond of near­ly $1.7 mil­lion before any work is allowed to begin at the site.

Anoth­er com­pa­ny, MCW Ener­gy, is propos­ing a pilot project to test its pro­pri­etary sol­vent in the extrac­tion of bitu­men on 1,000 stock­piled tons of tar sands 3 miles west of Ver­nal in Uin­tah Coun­ty.

Oppo­nents have appealed per­mits issued relat­ed to the PR Springs project, with hear­ings set for next month.”

“oil spill” at SIT­LA’s doorstep (non-tox­ic, maybe even edi­ble…)

Utah was cho­sen specif­i­cal­ly as the site of the annu­al Earth First! win­ter gath­er­ing to high­light resis­tance to these tar sands pro­pos­al, as well as lend sup­port to the coura­geous actions of peo­ple like Tim DeChristo­pher who was sen­tenced to a two-years in prison for his effec­tive sab­o­tage of an oil and gas auc­tion on Utah’s pub­lic lands. 

Along with DeChristo­pher, two oth­er eco­log­i­cal and ani­mal lib­er­a­tion activists from Utah, Jor­dan Hal­l­i­day and Wal­ter Bond, are also cur­rent­ly fac­ing time behind bars for their involve­ment with direct action efforts in the state. Con­tacts for these and oth­er eco-pris­on­ers can be found at the Earth First! Journal’s pris­on­er sup­port page.

In relat­ed news, an anony­mous com­mu­nique enti­tled Eco-Sab­o­tage Ends Tar Sand Extrac­tion was also received the pre­vi­ous night, appar­ent­ly sent back from the future, stat­ing: “…The Book Cliffs, where Spot­ted Owls screech and Elk reign, were under attack… Eco-War­riors worked under the ris­ing sun. We have Molo­toved their min­ing equip­ment. We have Mon­key-Wrenched their machines. We have sawed their bull­doz­ers to pieces. There are no longer any func­tion­al drilling tools in the Book Cliffs.

A major blow has been dealt to the oil extrac­tion infra­struc­ture. The PR Springs Mine Project is at its knees. Take Warn­ing. Oil will nev­er be piped through the West. Utah will nev­er be mined. The mines of Alber­ta will cease.

Image from the futur­is­tic com­mu­nique dis­trib­uted at the protest

No longer will our wild places fuel this mil­i­ta­rized cul­ture. Your machines are bound to rust. Tar Sand Extrac­tion Prof­i­teers, SITLA, CEO’s Glen D. Snar and Mr. Cuth­bert; We are com­ing for you. This is just the begin­ning…”

The min­ing equip­ment is not actu­al­ly present on-site yet, just in case that was unclear.