Thomson protesters strip to reveal the Naked Truth about biofuels

6.10.2011

3 pro­test­ers dis­rupt­ed the launch of Birm­ing­ham airport’s first bio­fu­el pow­ered flight by strip­ping to reveal slo­gans opposed to the con­tro­ver­sial new depar­ture.

6.10.2011

3 pro­test­ers dis­rupt­ed the launch of Birm­ing­ham airport’s first bio­fu­el pow­ered flight by strip­ping to reveal slo­gans opposed to the con­tro­ver­sial new depar­ture.

The Plane Stu­pid pro­test­ers min­gled with pas­sen­gers before calm­ly remov­ing their clothes. Dressed in noth­ing but red body paint that declared ‘bio­fu­els aren’t green’ they called on Thom­son to recon­sid­er their plans.

Thom­son claim that bio­fu­els offer a green­er future for avi­a­tion, but respect­ed envi­ron­men­tal and social jus­tice organ­i­sa­tions from Friends of the Earth to The World Devel­op­ment Move­ment and Chris­t­ian Aid believe that they will make the prob­lems of glob­al warm­ing worse.

Today’s launch fol­lows a delay of some months, after Thom­son found they couldn’t source enough used cook­ing oil. Even for one short haul flight a week from one air­port.

Pro­test­er Jo Turn­er said-
“It’s not sur­pris­ing that Thom­son have strug­gled to find enough recy­cled oils for their stunt. Demand for recy­cled road trans­port bio­fu­els already far out­strips sup­ply. Sad­ly, any­one with basic maths can see that used veg oils will nev­er be a viable solu­tion. They’re just a way of soft­en­ing up the mar­ket to make way for the real nas­ties like palm oil and jat­ropha. Bio­fu­els are a dev­il in dis­guise — a mas­sive­ly inef­fi­cient way of mak­ing fuel that destroys the very ecosys­tems we need to con­trol run­away cli­mate change.”

Pro­test­er Chris Coop­er added-
“Thomp­son seem to be acknowl­edg­ing that we can’t con­tin­ue busi­ness as usu­al in the face of the cur­rent cli­mate emer­gency. It’s a shame their solu­tion is to make mat­ters worse. Vast tracts of rain­for­est, ecosys­tems vital to halt­ing cli­mate change, are cur­rent­ly being trashed to make way for bio­fu­el plan­ta­tions.

Land that grows food is being stolen from some of the world’s poor­est peo­ple so that it can start feed­ing planes. It’s a dis­as­ter.”

All three have been arrest­ed and are await­ing charges.
Con­tact Emi­ly Simon 07864643650 for inter­views and more infor­ma­tion.

Notes to edi­tors:

1. The avi­a­tion indus­try talks about ‘nov­el’ bio­fu­els which won’t com­pete with food and forests. While major con­cerns remain around these process­es, includ­ing their use of syn­thet­ic biol­o­gy, none are wide­ly avail­able. Palm oil appears to be the only real­is­tic choice for com­mer­cial avi­a­tion bio­fu­els over the next few years, it’s wide­ly recog­nised for it’s destruc­tive impact.

2. Cur­rent­ly palm oil plan­ta­tions for a vari­ety of uses cov­er 12 mil­lion hectares of land. The avi­a­tion indus­try claims that bio­fu­els rep­re­sent ‘zero car­bon growth’. Bio­fu­el watch cal­cu­late that by 2030 avi­a­tion would need 45 Mil­lion hectares of land to meet their growth goals. For more infor­ma­tion see www.biofuelwatch.org.

3.On 1st July 2011 com­mer­cial air­lines got per­mis­sion to use 50% bio­fu­els made from spe­cial­ly refined veg­table oils as well as oth­er plant oils and ani­mal fat in their engines.

4. Plane Stu­pid is a grass roots group that uses direct action to oppose air­port expan­sion.

London September critical mass — pics and short report

sept 30 crit­i­cal mass. police allow motorist to leave the scene of an assault and refuse to take details despite wit­ness­es. did you wit­ness the assault?

the balmy indi­an sum­mer weath­er ensured a good turn-out for the crit­i­cal mass bike ride last fri­day evening, and hun­dreds of cyclists enjoyed a joy­ous ride round lon­don despite the occa­sion­al psy­cho­path­ic motorist and a cou­ple of crazy cops. the crit­i­cal mass bicy­cle ride, now in in its 17th year, takes place on the last fri­day of each month through­out the year.

sept 30 crit­i­cal mass. police allow motorist to leave the scene of an assault and refuse to take details despite wit­ness­es. did you wit­ness the assault?

the balmy indi­an sum­mer weath­er ensured a good turn-out for the crit­i­cal mass bike ride last fri­day evening, and hun­dreds of cyclists enjoyed a joy­ous ride round lon­don despite the occa­sion­al psy­cho­path­ic motorist and a cou­ple of crazy cops. the crit­i­cal mass bicy­cle ride, now in in its 17th year, takes place on the last fri­day of each month through­out the year.

the crit­i­cal mass bicy­cle ride, now in in its 17th year, takes place on the last fri­day of each month through­out the year. cyclists meet from about 6pm on the south bank under water­loo bridge near the nation­al film the­atre, and nor­mal­ly set off on a ride by about 7.

the ride has no offi­cial organ­is­ers, and the route is nev­er agreed in advance, rely­ing instead on a ‘crit­i­cal mass’ of front run­ners per­suad­ing the rest of the crowd to fol­low in any par­tic­u­lar direc­tion.

on fri­day, the con­voy of four or five hun­dred cyclists (also includ­ing an increas­ing con­tin­gent of skate­board­ers) head­ed north over the bridge, and unusu­al­ly took the under­pass into kingsway before head­ing west and on to oxford street.

as the main pur­pose of the mass is to cel­e­brate human propul­sion over car­bon, reclaim the streets, and show that cyclists have as many rights as dri­vers, it is some­times a lit­tle con­tentious when the route includes oxford street so ear­ly in the evening, as it most­ly dis­rupts pub­lic trans­port rather than gen­er­al traf­fic (which isn’t allowed onto oxford street until lat­er in the evening). how­ev­er, the mass kept up the pace and only stopped briefly at oxford cir­cus before head­ing to mar­ble arch and down park lane.

by this time, cyclists had spread out a lit­tle and so it was hard­er to take all four lanes of the road. so despite the neon sign at the start of park lane warn­ing motorists ‘delays pos­si­ble’, some of them were frus­trat­ed to find cyclists in their path (even though they were quite like­ly to get held up again at a traf­fic jam at the south end of the high­way), and among these motorists there was a police car, whose dri­ver reck­less­ly kept chang­ing lanes with­out sig­nalling, and delib­er­ate­ly cut across cyclists forc­ing them to veer to the left, and seri­ous­ly risk­ing injury.

fur­ther down park lane, there had been some sort of alter­ca­tion, and a woman claimed she had been assault­ed and pushed over by a motorist. the police car had stopped and the offi­cers got out, but instead of inves­ti­gat­ing the assault, one of them was mak­ing com­ments loud­ly that “you cyclists are pests”. the young woman, along with wit­ness­es to the assault, kept telling the police that she want­ed to make a com­plaint and press charges, but the cops just ignored her, return­ing to their vehi­cle and wind­ing their win­dows up. they also for a while refused to give any of their own details until sev­er­al cyclists sur­round­ing the car kept ask­ing for their badge num­bers, with which they even­tu­al­ly com­plied. they how­ev­er refused to take any details of the alleged inci­dent. the young woman is con­sid­er­ing an offi­cial police com­plaint. if any­one wit­nessed the assault or took pics/video, please con­tact me and i’ll put you in touch. i only have the clip of the police ignor­ing her requests.

some­times after an inci­dent like this, the mass gets stretched out or split, but this time, the front run­ners were cycling round and round the duke of welling­ton arch at hyde park cor­ner, so every­one recon­vened and hun­dreds of bicy­cles once again rode togeth­er east along pic­cadil­ly, com­plete­ly trap­ping a red diplo­mat­ic police car at one point, and on into pic­cadil­ly cir­cus, trafal­gar square (where a cou­ple of cyclists jumped into the foun­tains to cool off), and down white­hall to par­lia­ment square. there, one rid­er briefly hitched a lift on the back of a lor­ry before we all head­ed up to buck­ing­ham palace, back to hyde park cor­ner and then down to sloane square.

two hours in, and although num­bers were begin­ning to lessen, when i left the ride there were still at least a hun­dred rid­ers head­ing west down the king’s road.

the next ride will be 28th octo­ber.

http://www.criticalmasslondon.org.uk/main.html
More pic­tures and videos at http://london.indymedia.org/articles/10323

Check out if there’s a Crit­i­cal Mass in your town — or start one

Spanish farmers sab GM maize

5.10.11

The fol­low­ing is a com­mu­nique cross post­ed from Afi­la­do Nues­tras Vidas:

Trans­la­tion by Lilac

5.10.11

The fol­low­ing is a com­mu­nique cross post­ed from Afi­la­do Nues­tras Vidas:

Trans­la­tion by Lilac

Dur­ing the sec­ond week of August 2011 an unknown num­ber of peo­ple have destroyed part of an exper­i­men­tal field of GM maize seeds owned by Pio­neer. The area locat­ed between the towns of Val­divia and Zur­baran had been request­ed by the com­pa­ny to be opened to the fol­low­ing GMO maize vari­eties: 1057, 59122 maize, NK603. This field is one of the three request­ed this year by Mon­san­to and Pio­neer com­pa­nies to exper­i­ment with trans­genic corn.

This action is a small response to the impo­si­tion of genet­i­cal­ly mod­i­fied organ­isms (GMOs) by biotech­nol­o­gy com­pa­nies and the state. Since GM began to be exper­i­ment­ed, approved and mar­ket­ed heav­i­ly, its cre­ators and pro­mot­ers have stat­ed that GM would be able to end hunger or to safe­guard human health and the pos­si­bil­i­ty of a clean­er and more effi­cient agri­cul­ture. Noth­ing is fur­ther from the truth.

These GMOs are imposed in a con­text of: large cor­po­ra­tions fight­ing for monop­oly con­trol of seeds and chem­i­cals, mono­cul­tures, genet­ic pol­lu­tion, the dis­ap­pear­ance of small and medi­um farm­ers, liq­ui­da­tion of local economies, the dis­ap­pear­ance of indige­nous vari­eties, large dis­tri­b­u­tion net­works, waste and water pol­lu­tion, the expul­sion of rur­al com­mu­ni­ties.

These GMOs are not com­pat­i­ble with oth­er forms of pro­duc­tion and social orga­ni­za­tion based on the recov­ery of tra­di­tion­al agri­cul­ture that meet the needs of the peo­ple, not mar­kets, and do not over­flow the bound­aries of ecosys­tems, cou­pled with the will to escape the illu­so­ry link between hap­pi­ness and con­sump­tion.

Mod­els are clear­ly need­ed in a hun­gry and warm­ing world due to the sub­mis­sion to the mar­ket and total­i­tar­i­an states. There­fore these GMOs do not come to ful­fill the ben­e­fits, but rep­re­sent anoth­er twist to the agro-indus­tri­al mod­el, which will, among oth­er things, com­plete­ly expro­pri­ate the people’s their abil­i­ty to feed them­selves. For the final deci­sion of the approval and mar­ket­ing of GMOs, the state cre­at­ed the Nation­al Biosafe­ty Com­mit­tee (NBC). 

    Inside there are sev­en rep­re­sen­ta­tive NBC sci­en­tists, many of them linked to the biotech indus­try and pro-GM lob­by. This body is for the indus­try, not biose­cu­ri­ty, as evi­denced by the grow­ing num­ber of genet­ic con­t­a­m­i­na­tion in wheat and corn crops. In whole regions of the state, genet­ic con­t­a­m­i­na­tion in crops such as the above named is inevitable.

    Out­side our bor­ders, these GMOs have been respon­si­ble for all types of dis­as­ters such as famine, defor­esta­tion, poi­son­ing, aller­gies and oth­er ill­ness­es due to con­sump­tion as well as a myr­i­ad of con­straints to rur­al com­mu­ni­ties and farm­ers by biotech com­pa­nies, not to men­tion real mas­sacres caused by the man­u­fac­ture and use of chem­i­cals need­ed for this agro-indus­tri­al mod­el, of which GM is its ulti­mate expres­sion. To say GM is not say­ing “no!” to the evils and injus­tices that we have cit­ed;  “no!” to impos­ing: “no!” to the arti­fi­cial­i­ty of life; “no!” to the mad­ness of progress.

   The take action against GMOs is a legit­i­mate strug­gle of all peo­ple, symp­toms of com­mon sense and the need for pro­found social change, the result of being aware of the dan­ger to the Earth (and every­thing that gets penal­ized) in the hands of cap­i­tal­ism. Those who sow and reap trans­genic pro­motes resis­tance.

Farm­ers (campesin@s*) in Extremadu­ra in the strug­gle.
Extremadu­ra, Sep­tem­ber 2011
Indi­vid­ual farm­ers (campesin@s) in Extremadurs

*Translator’s note: Campesin@ is an untrans­lat­able word in Span­ish, which usu­al­ly con­notes small, com­mu­ni­ty based, sus­tain­able and sub­sis­tence farm­ers, although it can also be used in ref­er­ence to field work­ers under a giant cor­po­ra­tion like Chiq­ui­ta or Dole.

 

Update: Work starts to cut down Irton’s beech tree

Break­ing News 11pm, Tues­day 4th:
CONTRACTORS have start­ed work to cut down Irton’s beech tree.
Vic­ki “Beech­nut” Welsh spent four nights in the tree but came down at 10.10am today to applause from vil­lagers, who have now accept­ed defeat in their bat­tle to save the tree.

Break­ing News 11pm, Tues­day 4th:
CONTRACTORS have start­ed work to cut down Irton’s beech tree.
Vic­ki “Beech­nut” Welsh spent four nights in the tree but came down at 10.10am today to applause from vil­lagers, who have now accept­ed defeat in their bat­tle to save the tree.
The tree was fenced-off and felled, to tears — video.

4 Octo­ber 2011
A PROTESTER who is the lat­est to sit in the branch­es of a threat­ened tree in Irton yes­ter­day demand­ed answers to four ques­tions – one of which was aimed square­ly at the Prime Min­is­ter – before she leaves her leafy home.

The 17-year-old Bridling­ton girl, who is known only as Beech Nut, had been there since Fri­day and is the fifth tree­top pro­test­er since the start of the sit-in two weeks ago today.

She said that a spe­cial appeal had also been set up. She said: “I am here to launch the Irton Tree Foun­da­tion and would like to appeal for any help with our cause.”

Beech Nut said she want­ed to dis­pel any mis­con­cep­tions that the protest had cost coun­cil tax­pay­ers £250,000 – because their protest began after the deci­sion to fell the tree had been tak­en.

She added that, while they did not roost in the tree, bats used it as a pri­ma­ry feed­ing site. She said: “I’d like to see the results of a rep­utable bat sur­vey.”

Beech Nut said that the vil­lagers had been treat­ed with dis­re­spect and deserved answers. She asked: “Has the evi­dence been seen by a high court judge?”

And in a ques­tion direct­ed at Prime Min­is­ter David Cameron she asked about the valid­i­ty of tree preser­va­tion orders – the beech tree was the sub­ject of an order but it was over­ruled by a judge. She said: “It’s not just about this tree, in this vil­lage, it’s about all trees in Eng­land.”

A North York­shire Coun­ty Coun­cil rep­re­sen­ta­tive read out a state­ment on Fri­day which said that any­one pre­vent­ing the tree felling, which is like­ly to take place by the end of this week, could face a prison sen­tence.

Tree sup­port­ers have tak­en sep­a­rate legal advice to chal­lenge the court deci­sion and are wait­ing to hear the results.

Irton res­i­dent David Park­er said that they would con­tin­ue the protest until the first “chain­saw touched the trunk”. He added: “We’ve been told that some time this week the tree will def­i­nite­ly be felled but no offi­cial per­son has come here so far.”

He said that they would con­tin­ue to look into every legal avenue that they pos­si­bly could. He said: “We are quite with­in our rights to do so. We have a right to object peace­ful­ly against some­thing we dis­agree with. We will act with­in the law.”

The tree has been the sub­ject of a long-run­ning legal bat­tle between vil­lagers, two local author­i­ties and a near­by home­own­er, who suc­cess­ful­ly applied to a judge to have the beech cut down.

Peo­ple who would like to donate to the Irton Tree Foun­da­tion can do so through any branch of HSBC by using the sort code 40–40-22 and account num­ber 91752707.

Hinkley Point blockaders declare victory over EDF Energy

3/10/2011
For about nine hours, we block­ad­ed the nuclear pow­er sta­tion with up to 400 peo­ple. This was the biggest anti nuclear pow­er action in Britain for quite some years. It marked the begin­ning of a new anti nuclear pow­er move­ment in this coun­try, and you all made this pos­si­ble.

3/10/2011
For about nine hours, we block­ad­ed the nuclear pow­er sta­tion with up to 400 peo­ple. This was the biggest anti nuclear pow­er action in Britain for quite some years. It marked the begin­ning of a new anti nuclear pow­er move­ment in this coun­try, and you all made this pos­si­ble.
This time, the block­ade was tol­er­at­ed by EDF and the police. Only one per­son was arrest­ed when walk­ing on the pub­lic foot­path along the fence.
He was stopped and searched by police, and arrest­ed for pos­ses­sion of a craft knife. Luck­i­ly, he was lat­er released from Taunton police sta­tion with­out charge.

Those of you who came to the camp after the action are aware of a police inci­dent: a mobile CCTV vehi­cle of Avon & Som­er­set police drove onto the camp site, film­ing all the time. After a while it was pos­si­ble to per­suade them to leave the site.
Stop New Nuclear sees this as a provo­ca­tion, and we made it very clear that this inci­dent destroyed a lot of the trust between the police and the cam­paign that had been built in the run-up to the block­ade.
The police Sil­ver Com­mand has since sent an ‘apol­o­gy email’ that says they’ve delet­ed the mate­r­i­al.

The camp, demon­stra­tion, and block­ade of Hink­ley Point was not a one-off, nor was it the end — it should be the begin­ning of a pow­er­ful and cre­ative anti nuclear pow­er move­ment in Britain, that will stop the plans for eight new nuclear pow­er sta­tions in its tracks. To make this hap­pen, we need you!
We are there­fore organ­is­ing a Stop New Nuclear gath­er­ing in Bris­tol in Novem­ber (unfor­tu­nate­ly, we have not been able to set the date yet), to dis­cuss and plan the next cam­paigns and actions against nuclear new build in Britain. Please get involved — we need to grow as a move­ment, and this means we need more peo­ple organ­is­ing our actions. Please check back for updates and reg­is­ter for the Stop New Nuclear gath­er­ing at http://stopnewnuclear.org.uk/gathering2011. More infor­ma­tion will be avail­able soon.

If you have any ideas for action, please share them in our ideas forum at http://stopnewnuclear.org.uk/ideasforum.

News from Hink­ley Point
The Envi­ron­ment Agency has extend­ed the dead­line for objec­tions to EDF’s envi­ron­men­tal per­mit appli­ca­tion until 15 Decem­ber. This means we now have much more time to col­lect hun­dreds or even thou­sands of objec­tions. Please down­load the objec­tion sheet from http://stopnewnuclear.org.uk/objections-discharges, print it, sign it, and send it of to: PSC, PO Box 4404, Sheffield, S9 4WF

Press release:

Anti-nuclear pro­test­ers have declared the mass block­ade at Hink­ley Point today as a vic­to­ry over EDF Ener­gy. The nine-hour block­ade in Som­er­set attract­ed sup­port­ers from all over the UK. Sev­er­al came from as far afield as Ire­land, Ger­many and Bel­gium.

Stop New Nuclear spokesper­son, Andreas Speck, said the block­ade has put the gov­ern­ment and EDF on the back foot. ‘Fol­low­ing the inter­est this block­ade has attract­ed, both region­al­ly and nation­al­ly, the gov­ern­ment and EDF can no longer claim that the we need nuclear ener­gy to keep the lights on.’

He con­tin­ued: ‘Ger­many has com­mit­ted to a nuclear-free future with­out buy­ing nuclear pow­er from France or build­ing new coal-fired pow­er sta­tions. The Ger­man gov­ern­ment is look­ing at a decen­tralised ener­gy mod­el with a mix of renew­ables and Com­bined Heat and Pow­er (CHP) to bridge the gap left by with­draw­al from nuclear. If Ger­many can do it, why can’t we?’

Ang­ie Zel­ter, who hit the head­lines in 1996 when she and oth­er activists attacked a Hawk jet des­tined to sup­press protests in East Tim­or (and was sub­se­quent­ly cleared of crim­i­nal dam­age by a jury), blast­ed EDF’s claims that Hink­ley Point is sus­tain­able.

She added: ‘Over its life­time, Hink­ley will con­sume more ener­gy than it pro­duces — if you take into account the ener­gy used to extract ura­ni­um and the pow­er need­ed to store radioac­tive waste for hun­dreds of years. It doesn’t add up.’

Zel­ter said the risk of flood­ing is an increas­ing wor­ry. ‘Locals are well aware of the con­stant dan­ger of flood­ing around Hink­ley,’ she con­tin­ued. ‘We have infor­ma­tion from work­ers there that sev­er­al years ago, flood­wa­ter breached the plant’s retain­ing walls.’

She added that this was a par­tic­u­lar con­cern now that EDF wants to build two new mega reac­tors at Hink­ley. ‘Radioac­tive waste from the pro­posed new ERP reac­tors will be so tox­ic that it will have to be stored on the site for over 100 years. With the growth in extreme weath­er con­di­tions there is no guar­an­tee that this waste can be stored safe­ly.’

And Zel­ter blast­ed the gov­ern­ment for claim­ing that nuclear is the only solu­tion to com­bat­ing cli­mate change. ‘If the gov­ern­ment can spend bil­lion renew­ing Tri­dent mis­siles and fight­ing Gaddafi in Libya, why can’t they find the mon­ey to build tru­ly sus­tain­able ener­gy sys­tems that would cre­ate a great many more jobs than the nuclear sec­tor can?’

The mass block­ade was described by Stop New Nuclear organ­is­er, Andreas Speck, as a, ‘cel­e­bra­tion of dis­sent’ with pro-nuclear sup­port­ers being enter­tained by a Welsh choir and pop­u­lar fes­ti­val band, Seize The Day.

A man arrest­ed on a foot­path close to the block­ade was lat­er released with­out charge.

—

Reports, pic­tures and video.
More pho­tos
Camp pho­tos
Bridg­wa­ter demon­stra­tion
Block­ade of Hink­ley Point
Some pho­tos and some more
CND uploaded pho­tos here
We are slow­ly upload­ing videos

Call from France to all UK anti-nuclear Activists

Update: One thing is that the dates have changed and the camp will be on from 22nd of Novem­ber to 24th of Novem­ber

Update: One thing is that the dates have changed and the camp will be on from 22nd of Novem­ber to 24th of Novem­ber

INVITATION FOR A BIG CAMP AND MASS ACTION AGAINST THE NUCLEAR TRANSPORT CASTOR IN VALOGNES (FRANCE) ON THE 24TH AND 25TH OF NOVEMBER 2011, JUST ACROSS THE CHANNEL The french and the eng­lish gov­ern­ment have this com­mon fea­ture of being mad about nuclear pow­er. Where­as Ger­many, Switzer­land and Italy are step­ping out of the nuclear ener­gy, France and Great-Britain are doing as if Fukushi­ma nev­er hap­pened. If we refuse to let Fukushi­ma become, like Tch­er­nobyl before, an acci­dent with­out con­se­quence, it is time to take action, NOW. Please, spread this call to all your friends, com­rades, net­works in the UK. It will be a mas­sive thing!! If any­one could print this and give it out at the hink­ley protest, that would be won­der­ful. INVITATION FOR A BIG CAMP AND MASS ACTION AGAINST THE NUCLEAR TRANSPORT CASTOR IN VALOGNES (FRANCE) ON THE 22ND AND 24TH OF NOVEMBER 2011, JUST ACROSS THE CHANNEL The french and the eng­lish gov­ern­ment have this com­mon fea­ture of being mad about nuclear pow­er. Where­as Ger­many, Switzer­land and Italy are step­ping out of the nuclear ener­gy, France and Great-Britain are doing as if Fukushi­ma nev­er hap­pened. If we refuse to let Fukushi­ma become, like Tch­er­nobyl before, an acci­dent with­out con­se­quence, it is time to take action, NOW. More than ever, it is obvi­ous that it is only on an inter­na­tion­al lev­el that we can think the strug­gle against nuclear pow­er, because it is on this lev­el that the con­tra­dic­tion between the states that step out of it and those who don’t becomes explo­sive. As our aim — to free our­selves of those who destroy our lives and every­thing alive for the last mon­ey left to make — can in no way be achieved by them, as all the gov­ern­ments can do is green­wash their tools of destruc­tion, we should use this moment to make it clear that we still envi­sion a future. For it is not only the ques­tion of ener­gy that we are deter­mined to take back in our own hands but our lives. That is why we invite all british com­rades to join our ini­tia­tive right on the oth­er side of the Chan­nel, in Val­ognes (near Cher­bourg) on the 24th and 25th of novem­ber 2011. On these dates starts the CASTOR trans­port of high­ly radioac­tive refutes that goes from La Hague to Gor­leben (Ger­many). This year for the first time, in coor­di­na­tion with the Ger­man com­rades, there will be a camp and mass action in order to block this trans­port at its very start­ing point, in Val­ognes, just like the Ger­mans do it in Gor­leben. LET’S MEET THERE AND DISTURB LIKE NEVER BEFORE THE QUIET ROUTINE OF THIS DEADLY INDUSTRY! SOLIDARITY WITH THE BLOCKADE OF THE HINCKLEY POWERPLANT! valognesstopcastor@riseup.net

Mc-hammer time

In the ear­ly hours of Tues­day morn­ing (27/09/11) McDon­alds dri­ve thru in Bed­min­ster was vis­it­ed and thor­ough­ly smashed, with all it’s win­dows attacked.

Fuck Mcdon­alds and the death cul­ture they per­pet­u­ate and sym­bol­ise glob­al­ly, which means:

In the ear­ly hours of Tues­day morn­ing (27/09/11) McDon­alds dri­ve thru in Bed­min­ster was vis­it­ed and thor­ough­ly smashed, with all it’s win­dows attacked.

Fuck Mcdon­alds and the death cul­ture they per­pet­u­ate and sym­bol­ise glob­al­ly, which means:

abuse and mass slaugh­ter for mil­lions of ani­mals caged all their mis­er­able lives, poi­so­nous food, sick­ness and can­cer for humans, mind numb­ing drudgery and work­place con­trol and dis­ci­pline for work­ers treat­ed like slaves, destruc­tion for the envi­ron­ment and of course mas­sive prof­it for cap­i­tal­ists.

If you thought smash­ing up Mcdon­alds had gone out of ant­i­cap­i­tal­ist fash­ion, think again. We don’t for­get or for­give.

For earth, ani­mal and human lib­er­a­tion.

ALF / ELF

3rd October: Manchester occupied!

Yes­ter­day saw the occu­pa­tion of Albert Square in Man­ches­ter out­side the town hall. Through­out the after­noon and evening sev­er­al open mic assem­bly ses­sions were held with peo­ple speak­ing about var­i­ous issues with the com­mon themes being resis­tance to cuts, com­mu­ni­ty organ­is­ing, direct democ­ra­cy, and occu­pa­tions. There was also a sound sys­tem pump­ing out tunes and some danc­ing in the rain.

Yes­ter­day saw the occu­pa­tion of Albert Square in Man­ches­ter out­side the town hall. Through­out the after­noon and evening sev­er­al open mic assem­bly ses­sions were held with peo­ple speak­ing about var­i­ous issues with the com­mon themes being resis­tance to cuts, com­mu­ni­ty organ­is­ing, direct democ­ra­cy, and occu­pa­tions. There was also a sound sys­tem pump­ing out tunes and some danc­ing in the rain.

The per­sis­tent rain proved to be a dis­cour­ag­ing fac­tor and after sev­er­al hours the size of the crowd pret­ty much matched the size of the tarps strung across lam­posts to pro­vide some cov­er (ear­li­er the police had tried to pre­vent peo­ple rig­ging up the shel­ters).

Lat­er in the evening peo­ple heck­led guests attend­ing tory par­ty fringe meet­ings at the town hall and the police went around grab­bing beers off a few peo­ple.

Around 9pm a group of 20–30 peo­ple with a sound sys­tem on their way to the occu­pa­tion from the squat­ted con­ver­gence cen­tre were has­sled by the cops and there were a few arrests.

http://www.occupymanchester.org

3rd October: Blockaders begin mass protest outside Hinkley Point Nuclear Power Station

More than 200 peo­ple have suc­cess­ful­ly sealed off the main entrance to Hink­ley Point nuclear pow­er sta­tion in Som­er­set.

Con­voys of pro­test­ers began to arrive at the main gate short­ly before 7am. The entrance is just yards away from where EDF Ener­gy is mak­ing a bid to build two new mega-reac­tors.

http://stopnewnuclear.org.uk

More than 200 peo­ple have suc­cess­ful­ly sealed off the main entrance to Hink­ley Point nuclear pow­er sta­tion in Som­er­set.

Con­voys of pro­test­ers began to arrive at the main gate short­ly before 7am. The entrance is just yards away from where EDF Ener­gy is mak­ing a bid to build two new mega-reac­tors.

http://stopnewnuclear.org.uk

The block­ade was launched with the arrival of a the­atri­cal troupe who enact­ed a nuclear dis­as­ter sce­nario sim­i­lar to Fukushi­ma. Approx­i­mate­ly 70% of pro­test­ers are from the South West. Oth­ers have come from as far afield as Bel­gium and Ger­many.

Well-known fes­ti­val band, Seize the Day, pro­vid­ed a musi­cal back­drop to the event. Andreas Speck, spokesper­son for the Stop New Nuclear alliance said: ‘This is the start of a new move­ment. We intend this day to be a cel­e­bra­tion of resis­tance against the gov­ern­ment and EDF Energy’s plans to spear­head the con­struc­tion of eight new nuclear pow­er plants around the UK.’

He con­tin­ued: ‘This is block­ade shows that peo­ple who under­stand the true dan­gers of nuclear pow­er are pre­pared to use civ­il dis­obe­di­ence to get their voice heard. The gov­ern­ment has hood­winked the pub­lic into believ­ing that we need nuclear pow­er to keep the lights on. But this is total­ly untrue.’

To show their sup­port for the vic­tims of the Fukushi­ma dis­as­ter, pro­test­ers will launch 206 heli­um bal­loons – to rep­re­sent the num­ber of days since the par­tial melt­down at the Japan­ese pow­er sta­tion. The jour­ney of bal­loons will be tracked to show which areas of the West Coun­try will be worst affect­ed should a major dis­as­ter hap­pen at Hink­ley Point.

‘We need to bring home to peo­ple that nuclear pow­er sta­tions can fail for many rea­sons – usu­al­ly because of human error,’ said Nik­ki Clark from South West Against Nuclear. ‘The explo­sion at a waste pro­cess­ing plant in France a few weeks ago is a clear reminder that nobody is safe from the dan­gers of nuclear ener­gy.’

Pro­test­ers are urg­ing min­is­ters to look to Ger­many where the gov­ern­ment has pledged to phase out nuclear pow­er with­in ten years. ‘The Ger­man gov­ern­ment has just pub­lished a blue­print for a sus­tain­able, nuclear-free future,’ said Camil­la Berens from cam­paign group, Kick Nuclear. The key focus is ener­gy reduc­tion and a bridg­ing tech­nol­o­gy called com­bined heat and pow­er (CHP). The burn­ing ques­tion is, if Ger­many can do it, why can’t we?’

For more infor­ma­tion on the ground, con­tact Camil­la Berens on: 07811–451417. Pho­tographs will be release at the Stop New Nuclear web­site lat­er today.

Dale Farm: injunction remains for now

LATEST: Mon­day 3 Octo­ber: Basil­don Coun­cil con­cedes that full clear­ance of Dale Farm as orig­i­nal­ly pro­posed would be ille­gal. Coun­cil ordered to pay one third of Dale Far­m’s legal costs. Await­ing out­come of appli­ca­tions for judi­cial reviews, due Tues­day.

LATEST: Mon­day 3 Octo­ber: Basil­don Coun­cil con­cedes that full clear­ance of Dale Farm as orig­i­nal­ly pro­posed would be ille­gal. Coun­cil ordered to pay one third of Dale Far­m’s legal costs. Await­ing out­come of appli­ca­tions for judi­cial reviews, due Tues­day.

The legal­i­ty of the evic­tion notices served by Basil­don Coun­cil on Dale Farm res­i­dents was chal­lenged by the Trav­ellers in the High Court on Fri­day. Once the argu­ments had been heard, includ­ing an appli­ca­tion by Basil­don Coun­cil for the scaf­fold­ing at the entrance to the site to be removed, the Judge Mr Jus­tice Edwards-Stu­art said that there would not be a rul­ing before Mon­day 26 Sep­tem­ber (now extend­ed to Tues­day 4 Octo­ber). Late in the day it was report­ed that the injunc­tion to restrain bailiffs from start­ing any clear­ance or evic­tion of the site would stand in its cur­rent form until at least 4pm Mon­day. A lat­er report indi­cat­ed that the judge may fur­ther extend the injunc­tion into the mid­dle of next week or beyond if nec­es­sary. In the mean­time, appli­ca­tions are being pre­pared for judi­cial review of the evic­tion, which could lead to fur­ther delay of a final deci­sion. Basil­don Coun­cil has already set aside £18 mil­lion to evict the Dale Farm res­i­dents. How­ev­er, with the cur­rent stale­mate report­ed to be cost­ing the coun­cil over £1 mil­lion per day, the total cost is like­ly to have increased by some £8 mil­lion by Mon­day and will con­tin­ue to rise dur­ing any fur­ther delay. With a bit of luck they’ll run out of mon­ey before the evic­tion is allowed to go ahead.

Sup­port­ers are need­ed both at the High Court now and at Dale Farm now and for the dura­tion. Con­tact savedalefarm@gmail.com for more infor­ma­tion or see Save Dale Farm.