TESCO UPDATE: Former Jesters Squatted. Huge Turnout for Meeting on Monday. Stokes Croft Organises its own Consultation. Website

11 Feb­ru­ary 2010

Bristol squat Tescos11 Feb­ru­ary 2010
The for­mer Jesters Com­e­dy Club at 142 Chel­tenham Road, Stokes Croft, whose lease has been tak­en over by Tesco, has been squat­ted. It is believed that the squat­ting action took place on Tues­day night. Aston­ished at the lack of prop­er con­sul­ta­tion and Tesco’s under­hand tac­tics, local res­i­dents moved into occu­pa­tion of the premis­es deter­mined not to allow the devel­op­ment to go ahead. This pre-empts work begin­ning on the 32nd Tesco store in Bris­tol alone.

There are 2306 Tesco relat­ed premis­es in the UK at present and with Tesco account­ing for about £1 in every £8 spent in the UK retail sec­tor we seri­ous­ly believe they are break­ing EU Monop­oly Laws.

We have been informed that secu­ri­ty per­son­nel, pre­sum­ably work­ing on behalf of Tesco PLC, arrived some­time on Wednes­day armed with sledge­ham­mers, intent on regain­ing the prop­er­ty. The Police were called and they ordered the Secu­ri­ty gang to desist from their intend­ed action, thus head­ing off the pos­si­bil­i­ty of need­less vio­lence. The squat­ters remain in situ.

Mon­day night’s meet­ing, host­ed at Hamil­ton House, attract­ed over 200 local peo­ple. In view of the lack of Com­mu­ni­ty Con­sul­ta­tion, it was decid­ed that the Com­mu­ni­ty would organ­ise their own.

In order to co-ordi­nate the Community’s response to Tesco’s pro­posed incur­sion into Stokes Croft, a ded­i­cat­ed web­site has been set up.
www.notescoinstokescroft.org.uk

A mes­sage from the occu­piers:
“We will resist evic­tion, and are call­ing out for like mind­ed peo­ple across bris­tol.
There is no need for anoth­er plas­tic store local shops are ade­quate enough. Let’s mobilise, even if we man­age to win this one we know they’ll want more!”

Find out how you can join in. Posters for your win­dow, or the win­dow of your business,surveys and post­cards to send to BCC can be obtained from PRSC HQ between 11 and 6pm.

http://www.tescopoly.org/

Sea Shepherd update — whaling shut-down, and skirmishes

Feb­ru­ary 8 2010
Sea Shep­herd Has Shut Down Ille­gal Japan­ese Whal­ing

Steve Irwin Joins Pur­suit of Nis­shin Maru

The Sea Shep­herd ship Steve Irwin joined the Sea Shep­herd ship Bob Bark­er this morn­ing at 0700 Hours (Syd­ney time). Both Sea Shep­herd ships are now on the tail of the Japan­ese fac­to­ry ship Nis­shin Maru.

Steve Irwin & Bob Baker confront whalersFeb­ru­ary 8 2010
Sea Shep­herd Has Shut Down Ille­gal Japan­ese Whal­ing

Steve Irwin Joins Pur­suit of Nis­shin Maru

The Sea Shep­herd ship Steve Irwin joined the Sea Shep­herd ship Bob Bark­er this morn­ing at 0700 Hours (Syd­ney time). Both Sea Shep­herd ships are now on the tail of the Japan­ese fac­to­ry ship Nis­shin Maru.

The Japan­ese fleet was run­ning fast to the North­east not know­ing that the Steve Irwin was on a course of South­west com­ing direct­ly for them. With the fleet doing 15 knots, and the Steve Irwin doing 15 knots, the Steve Irwin and the whal­ing fleet closed the gap at 30 knots cut­ting the ren­dezvous time in half.

The Steve Irwin sat motion­less by an ice­berg for two hours at a dis­tance of thir­ty miles to allow the Nis­shin Maru to con­tin­ue towards it. At a dis­tance of only three miles, the Steve Irwin got under­way and inter­cept­ed the Nis­shin Maru.

As the Steve Irwin passed by the Nis­shin Maru, the fac­to­ry ship turned on their water can­nons and were sur­prised when the Steve Irwin respond­ed with a more pow­er­ful water can­non that had a cou­ple of the whalers div­ing for the bridge doors as the frigid water struck their bridge wing deck.

The Steve Irwin is present­ly tail­ing the Nis­shin Maru a few cable lengths and slight­ly to the port side of the fac­to­ry ship. Across from the Steve Irwin, the Bob Bark­er is tail­ing the Nis­shin Maru slight­ly to the star­board side.

Fol­low­ing in the wake of the Nis­shin Maru are the Japan­ese ves­sels Shonan Maru 2, Yushin Maru 1 and Yushin Maru 2. There is no sign of the Yushin Maru 3.

Six ships, two from Sea Shep­herd and four ves­sels from the Japan­ese fleet, are head­ing at full speed north­east­ward­ly.

“Not a sin­gle whale has died since the Bob Bark­er inter­cept­ed the fleet at 0100 Hours on Feb­ru­ary 6th. It is now the third day that the whal­ing fleet has been unable to kill a whale. We intend to turn these three whal­ing free days into three whal­ing free weeks,” said Cap­tain Paul Wat­son. “I am con­fi­dent that once again we will severe­ly cut their kill quo­tas and we will once again negate their prof­its.”

The Steve Irwin and the Bob Bark­er have enough fuel to pur­sue the whal­ing fleet for anoth­er month.

“It does not mat­ter where they go, east or west along the Antarc­tic Coast,” said Steve Irwin 1st Offi­cer Locky MacLean. “We intend to stick to their rear like glue and we will not allow a sin­gle whale to be loaded onto the decks of that foul float­ing abat­toir.”

There are 41 crew (29 men and 12 women) on board the Steve Irwin from Aus­tralia, Bermu­da, Brazil, Cana­da, Esto­nia, France, Japan, Hun­gary, the Nether­lands, New Zealand, Poland, South Africa, Swe­den, the Unit­ed King­dom, and the Unit­ed States (15 nation­al­i­ties).

There are 30 (6 women and 24 men) crew on board the Bob Bark­er from Aus­tralia, New Zealand, Unit­ed States, Swe­den, Unit­ed King­dom, and South Africa (6 nation­al­i­ties).

—

Feb­ru­ary 09, 2010
Sea Shep­herd Escorts Whal­ing Fleet Out of the South­ern Ocean Whale Sanc­tu­ary

The Sea Shep­herd ships Steve Irwin and the Bob Bark­er have suc­cess­ful­ly escort­ed the Japan­ese whal­ing fleet out of the South­ern Ocean Whale Sanc­tu­ary.

After repeat­ed orders from Sea Shep­herd to desist their ille­gal activ­i­ties and remove them­selves from the South­ern Ocean, the Nis­shin Maru, Yushin Maru, Yushin Maru #2 and Shonan Maru #2 have crossed north of six­ty degrees and con­tin­ue to head North by North­west.

“We did not actu­al­ly expect them to fol­low our orders to quit the Whale Sanc­tu­ary but they have indeed exit­ed and are now run­ning out­side the South­ern Ocean Whale Sanc­tu­ary”, Said Cap­tain Paul Wat­son, “They have not killed a sin­gle whale since Feb­ru­ary 5th. We intend to turn four whal­ing free days into weeks.”

At 0500 Hours on Feb­ru­ary 7th the Nis­shin Maru was inter­cept­ed by the Steve Irwin at 64 Degrees 2 Min­utes South and 80 Degrees 11 Min­utes East. The whal­ing fleet then ran North­east for 95 miles on a course of 060 Degrees and then changed course at 1600 Hours on Feb­ru­ary 7th to 260 Degrees began to run North­west for 260 miles. The whal­ing fleet left the South­ern Ocean Whale Sanc­tu­ary at 1830 Hours (Syd­ney Time) at 60 Degrees South and 77 Degrees East. (Feb­ru­ary 9th, 2010)

The Sea Shep­herd ships Steve Irwin and Bob Bark­er con­tin­ue to chase the Japan­ese whal­ing fleet.

“We intend to keep on their tail and to pre­vent any whal­ing oper­a­tions for as long as our fuel reserves last and that should be for anoth­er few weeks at least,” Said Bob Bark­er cap­tain Chuck Swift.

The Sea Shep­herd ships are with the entire whal­ing fleet except the Yushin Maru #3. That ship has not been seen since the col­li­sion with the Bob Bark­er on Feb­ru­ary 6th.

—

Feb­ru­ary 11 2010
Five-Hour Bat­tle At the Gate­way of the South­ern Ocean Whale Sanc­tu­ary

A bat­tle erupt­ed between the Sea Shep­herd ships Bob Bark­er and Steve Irwin and the Japan­ese whal­ing fleet when the whalers ignored a warn­ing from Sea Shep­herd to not reen­ter the South­ern Ocean Sanc­tu­ary.

The Japan­ese fleet was escort­ed out of the South­ern Ocean Whale Sanc­tu­ary at 1530 Hours on Tues­day, Feb­ru­ary 9th. They left the Sanc­tu­ary at 60 Degrees South and 76 Degrees and 36 Min­utes East.

The fleet fled north on a course of 310 Degrees to the posi­tion of 57 Degrees 14 Min­utes South and 69 Degrees 6 min­utes East and then turned back one hun­dred and eighty degrees and head­ed back towards the Sanc­tu­ary on a course of 230 at 1700 Hours on Feb­ru­ary 10th.

At 1650 on Thurs­day, Feb­ru­ary 11th the Japan­ese fleet reen­tered the Whale Sanc­tu­ary at 60 Degrees South and 62 Degrees East.

As the Japan­ese fleet reen­tered the Whale Sanc­tu­ary, the Sea Shep­herd ship Steve Irwin pulled up along­side the Nis­shin Maru to deliv­er a mes­sage by loud­speak­er in Japan­ese warn­ing them not to enter the Whale Sanc­tu­ary. The Nis­shin Maru respond­ed with water can­non and LRAD fire. The Steve Irwin returned water can­non fire.

The Steve Irwin then attempt­ed to launch a heli­copter when the three har­poon ves­sels moved in with water can­nons and LRADs blaz­ing in an attempt to destroy the heli­copter on the deck. The Bob Bark­er moved into posi­tion to block the har­poon ves­sels and the Steve Irwin was forced to fire warn­ing flares in front of the har­poon ves­sels to force them to back off.

The six ships, four whaler and two con­ser­va­tion ves­sels, engaged for over five hours. There were many near miss­es but no col­li­sions. There were no injuries.

A Sea Shep­herd Delta launched from the Steve Irwin annoyed the har­poon ves­sels with rot­ten but­ter bomb attacks.

All ships have backed off and the con­voy of whalers and anti-whalers con­tin­ues in a South­west­ern direc­tion into the South­ern Ocean Whale Sanc­tu­ary.

“Tomor­row marks a full week that not a whale has been killed,” said Cap­tain Paul Wat­son. “Our goal now is to make it two weeks and then three weeks. We will not tol­er­ate the death of a sin­gle whale. If they attempt to kill and trans­fer a whale to the Nis­shin Maru there will be inevitable col­li­sions, because we will nei­ther move out of harms way nor cease block­ing the slip­way. That I can promise.”

Climate Change Activists: Join the Vancouver Convergence

A coali­tion of envi­ron­men­tal activists led by GatewaySucks.org is call­ing on cli­mate change activists to join the con­ver­gence at the 2010 Olympic Games in Van­cou­ver.


A coali­tion of envi­ron­men­tal activists led by GatewaySucks.org is call­ing on cli­mate change activists to join the con­ver­gence at the 2010 Olympic Games in Van­cou­ver.

When the 2010 Win­ter Olympics start a cou­ple of weeks from now in Van­cou­ver, BC the ath­letes and spec­ta­tors will be joined by orga­ni­za­tions with some of the worst records on cli­mate change.

Gen­er­al Motors is a nation­al part­ner for the games, and one of the lead­ing cor­po­rate oppo­nents of effec­tive action on cli­mate change. Only two years ago, a vice-chair­man of GM called glob­al warm­ing a “total crock of shit.” GM is sup­ply­ing a large fleet of vehi­cles for the games, almost all of which are gas-guz­zling SUVs.

Petro-Cana­da, anoth­er Nation­al Olympic Part­ner, is the retail arm of the largest extrac­tor of Oil Sands bitu­men. The Oil Sands are Canada’s biggest ghg emis­sions point source.

RBC (the Roy­al Bank of Cana­da) in addi­tion to being a promi­nent Olympic spon­sor is the largest com­mer­cial bank fun­der of the Oil Sands,. Tran­sCana­da pipelines, whose pipelines con­nect to the Oil Sands, is also an offi­cial sup­pli­er.

The gov­ern­ment of British Colum­bia is the main fun­der and pro­mot­er of the games. They kicked off a mas­sive plan to add over 1,000 km of new high­way lanes (an increase of over 2,000,000 annu­al tonnes of CO2e emis­sions ) with the Sea-to-Sky High­way expan­sion for the Olympics. These plans include the con­tro­ver­sial Gate­way Pro­gram. It con­tin­ues to heav­i­ly sub­si­dize the oil and gas indus­try which result­ed in it being the only Cana­di­an province to see ghg emis­sions from indus­tri­al sources increase in 2008.

The Fed­er­al gov­ern­ment of Cana­da which con­sis­tent­ly earned “Fos­sil Awards” at the most recent inter­na­tion­al cli­mate talks also is a major fun­der for the Olympics.

These cor­po­ra­tions and gov­ern­ments want to fool the world with their claim that these are the “Green­est Games Ever” despite the links to cli­mate change deniers, high­way expan­sion and the Oil Sands.

If you would like to endorse this call-out or get involved direct­ly please con­tact info@gatewaysucks.org.

MORE INFORMATION:

Con­ver­gence Info: http://olympicresistance.net/

Wel­com­ing Com­mit­tee: http://2010welcoming.wordpress.com/

Green Olympic Watch: http://2010greenwatch.org/

GatewaySucks.org: http://www.gatewaysucks.org/

2010 Cli­mate Crime Scene: http://2010climatecrime.org

Manchester Airport and Heathrow residents join forces

Sun­day 7th Feb­ru­ary 2010

Sun­day 7th Feb­ru­ary 2010
Res­i­dents and cam­paign­ers against the expan­sion of Man­ches­ter and Heathrow air­ports have joined forces in a show of sol­i­dar­i­ty between both places threat­ened by air­port expan­sion. Around 80 peo­ple turned out for the launch of the ‘Adopt-a-Res­i­dent’ scheme on Hasty Lane which involved cam­paign­ers from across Man­ches­ter and across the coun­try pledg­ing to sup­port the res­i­dents in their bat­tle to save their hous­es and that if it came to it – to take direct action against the bull­doz­ers try­ing to demol­ish their homes.

Peter John­son and daugh­ter Hol­ly John­son host­ed the event in front of their house. They were joined by Tra­cy Howard – a res­i­dent from Sip­son, as well John Stew­art, Chair of Air­port­Watch, and activists from Stop Expan­sion at Man­ches­ter Air­port (SEMA) coali­tion and Plane Stu­pid.

The day also involved a vis­it to the near­by 300 year old nat­ur­al pond and home to endan­gered Great Crest­ed Newts.

SEMA spokesper­son Sian Jones said: “The res­i­dents aren’t alone in this — cli­mate jus­tice cam­paign­ers from across Man­ches­ter and the coun­try are back­ing them all the way.”

Hasty Lane res­i­dent Peter John­son said: “Togeth­er with Sip­son res­i­dents, we are going to fight these irre­spon­si­ble and unnec­es­sary plans. Our local coun­cil­lors all opposed the plans, but they were over­ruled. The coun­cil has let us down, but we’re not going to give up that eas­i­ly.”

Sip­son res­i­dent Tra­cy Howard, 35, who made the trip up north for the twin­ning event said: “The sto­ry of Hasty lane is a way too famil­iar sto­ry to ours. Local com­mu­ni­ties suf­fer­ing from a big air­port that is destroy­ing our homes, our health and the cli­mate. If a 3rd run­way at Heathrow is built I face los­ing my home, my job and my grandmother’s grave will be dug up. This is why I have been adopt­ed by a Plane Stu­pid activist as there direct action tac­tics could be all we have left.”

PRESS COVERAGE
———————————–
BBC Web­site
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/manchester/8502871.stm

Man­ches­ter Evening News report
http://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/s/1191887_tea_party_protest_over_airport_extension_plan

Back­ground infor­ma­tion
———————————–
In Novem­ber 2009, Man­ches­ter City Coun­cil approved plans to bull­doze
peo­ple’s homes on Hasty Lane to expand the World Freight Cen­tre at
Man­ches­ter Air­port. This over­turned the deci­sion by local coun­cil­lors from the Wythen­shawe Area Com­mit­tee, who reject­ed the Air­port’s plans.

Man­ches­ter Air­port is one of the region’s biggest pol­luters (2.5 mil­lion tonnes of CO2 annu­al­ly, based on depart­ing flights only). Yet it was recent­ly omit­ted from Man­ches­ter City Coun­cil’s Cli­mate Change Action Plan ( http://www.manchesterclimate.com/)

Man­ches­ter City Coun­cil own 55% of Man­ches­ter Air­ports Group – which also owns Bournemouth, Hum­ber­side and Not­ting­ham East Mid­lands Air­port.

Man­ches­ter Air­port was recent­ly reject­ed from the 10:10 cam­paign.
http://stopmanchesterairport.blogspot.com/2009/11/manchester-airport-rejected-from-1010.html

For more infor­ma­tion, see:
http://www.stopmanchesterairport.org.uk

TAR SANDS — OILYMPICS — CALL TO ACTION — solidarity actions against green washing, 13th Feb

*Call to Action*

The Cana­di­an Tar Sands Oil-ympics — The Race to the Tar Sands is On!
Sat­ur­day Feb­ru­ary 13th, is the open­ing day of the 2010 Win­ter Olympics in Van­cou­ver, Cana­da. That’s right, it’s time for the Oil-ympics, and you can par­tic­i­pate!

*Call to Action*

The Cana­di­an Tar Sands Oil-ympics — The Race to the Tar Sands is On!
Sat­ur­day Feb­ru­ary 13th, is the open­ing day of the 2010 Win­ter Olympics in Van­cou­ver, Cana­da. That’s right, it’s time for the Oil-ympics, and you can par­tic­i­pate!

All you need to bring is ‘sports cloth­ing’ (win­ter if pos­si­ble) and a sense of mis­chief and fun to Cana­da House in Trafal­gar Square, this Sat­ur­day, Feb­ru­ary 13th at 12:00 pm. Atten­dees will be divid­ed into three oily teams: ‘BP’, ‘Shell’ and ‘Total’, all ready to ‘Race to the Tar Sands’?

Ever tried curl­ing? Come along and and help sweep out BP, Shell, and RBS as they all race head­long into the Tar Sands.

The Cana­di­an Tar Sands in Alber­ta is one of the sin­gle biggest indus­tri­al projects on earth, the envi­ron­men­tal and social night­mare that is the Tar Sands – is cur­rent­ly pro­duc­ing the dirt­i­est oil on the plan­et. There is cur­rent­ly a glob­al “race to the tar sands” and the main com­peti­tors Shell, Total and BP are all rac­ing ahead to extract uncon­ven­tion­al oil from the Cana­di­an Tar Sands, regard­less of the envi­ron­men­tal and social costs of extrac­tion and oppo­si­tion from local com­mu­ni­ties affect­ed by the
extrac­tion.

Although the oil is being extract­ed in Cana­da, there are direct links to the UK. Roy­al Bank of Scot­land, HSBC and Bar­clays are all invest­ed in the tar sands. Britain’s very own BP are about to reverse their deci­sion to stay away from the destruc­tive project, mak­ing ‘Beyond Petro­le­um’ noth­ing more than a Bro­ken Promise.

This action is in sol­i­dar­i­ty with Cana­di­an First Nations groups whose lands and com­mu­ni­ties are being dev­as­tat­ed in the name of cor­po­rate prof­it, and who have called for a mora­to­ri­um on the tar sands.

For more info about the Cana­di­an Tar Sands, the Oil-ympics and the UK Tar Sands Net­work check out these links.

http://www.tarsandsinfocus.wordpress.com
http://oilsandstruth.org/topics/2010-olympics
http://olympicresistance.net/
http://www.ienearth.org/cits

courts attacked in bristol

Last night the mag­is­trates court next to the bus sta­tion in the mid­dle of bris­tol was attacked. all the reach­able win­dows were smashed out and spray paint mes­sages left on the walls “fuck the law not the poor!”

Last night the mag­is­trates court next to the bus sta­tion in the mid­dle of bris­tol was attacked. all the reach­able win­dows were smashed out and spray paint mes­sages left on the walls “fuck the law not the poor!”
we know that the court ‘jus­tice’ sys­tem is noth­ing but a farse designed and run to pro­tect the wealth and pow­er that rules this rot­ten soci­ety. we know that this sys­tem is our ene­my, it does not pro­tect us. we know that to achieve a world where we might con­trol our own lives and find solu­tions to our own prob­lems we must first fight to bring this world to the ash­es that it so deserves.
this done in sol­i­dar­i­ty and anar­chist greet­ings to every­one fucked over by the courts, pro­ba­tion, police, boss­es, and every­one fight­ing class strug­gle against the pow­er in the social war that is brought down on us.

Kew Bridge Eco-Village update (+ Seedy Sunday)

There’ll be a seed swap day on 14th Feb, inspired by Brighton’s orig­i­nal Seedy Sun­day — details here.

There’ll be a seed swap day on 14th Feb, inspired by Brighton’s orig­i­nal Seedy Sun­day — details here.

On June 6th 2009, near­ly a hun­dred activists con­verged on a piece of derelict land at Kew Bridge in south west Lon­don to cre­ate an eco-vil­lage com­mu­ni­ty based entire­ly on sus­tain­able tech­nol­o­gy and con­struc­tion tech­niques.

This eco-vil­lage occu­pa­tion is inspired by cam­paigns like The Land is Ours which cam­paigns peace­ful­ly for access to the land, its resources, and the deci­sion-mak­ing process­es affect­ing them, for every­one, irre­spec­tive of race, gen­der or age. for more infor­ma­tion, please vis­it:

Please post any seeds or post­cards or any­thing you like to:

The Eco Vil­lage
2 Kew Bridge Rd
Brent­ford
TW8 0JF
site phone num­ber — 07967864370

In Decem­ber we had a six month cel­e­bra­tion and invit­ed peo­ple from the com­mu­ni­ty to a fire par­ty. It was a great suc­cess.

In Sep­tem­ber last year, vil­lagers cheered when Houn­slow coun­cil­lors put off a plan by St George to build 164 flats, a river­side pub, a busi­ness hub and a piaz­za on the site.

The devel­op­ment is not due to be dis­cussed by a coun­cil com­mit­tee before March and, with local elec­tions tak­ing place in May, a meet­ing may not take place until June – mean­ing the eco-vil­lage may remain for anoth­er six months.

Over the last 4 months we have grad­u­al­ly improved our liv­ing con­di­tions on the site. We have a full work­ing com­post toi­let, a kitchen and a round­house. Still 100% rely­ing on dona­tions and the rub­bish you throw away, we have built up our com­mu­ni­ty from noth­ing!

The best improve­ment so far is def­i­nite­ly our homes. You may have gone past us on the bus and seen a tarp vil­lage, assum­ing that it was all tents — but its not! We have learnt to build our own hous­es out of hazel wood poles. By bend­ing them into arch­es, tying them down and then insu­lat­ing with blan­kets and tarps, we have cre­at­ed won­der­ful lit­tle liv­ing spaces that are easy peasy to do!

We still main­tain that we are essen­tial­ly a com­mu­ni­ty gar­den. We encour­age every­one from the local area to pay us a vis­it and share their ideas about what we should do with the land, as well as get­ting them to help us plant our veg­eta­bles and also just to chill out and get to know us all.

We will hold a pub­lic meet­ing every Thurs­day night at 7pm on site, and we shall try to make every Sun­day an event filled open day.

Need­less to say, we still wel­come every­body from all over Lon­don and the world. We have had quite a few inter­na­tion­al vis­i­tors late­ly! Every­one is wel­come to come and stay as long as they fol­low site rules which include no drugs and alco­hol, as well as being con­sid­er­ate to oth­ers and you must active­ly par­tic­i­pate as a mem­ber of the com­mu­ni­ty.

We espe­cial­ly wel­come any­one with any skills or knowl­edge which may be use­ful or inter­est­ing. We encour­age peo­ple to hold work­shops to share their skills, whether it is about com­mon law, herbal reme­dies, yoga, or even how to make didgeri­doos or repair bicy­cles! Or even if you know noth­ing but just want to learn, come along too!

Our week:

Mon­days — Closed (we go and protest out­side MOD and down­ing street)

Tues­days — Fri­days — Open 11–1 and 5–7pm

Every Thurs­day — 7pm Pub­lic meet­ing

Every Fri­day — Wild Food Fri­day 10am — a walk around Rich­mond park tast­ing and learn­ing berries nuts and mush­rooms

Sat­ur­days and Sun­days — Open 11–6

(By ‘Open’ I mean the gate is open and we give tours. If you want to come and help us then please just come in any­way!)

.….….….….….….….….….….….….….….….….…

You are wel­come to come and vis­it us and stay over if you like, but:

1. You must sleep in the Hexiyurt guest­house as we don’t have the room for any more tents. The guest­house can acco­mo­date about 6 peo­ple, so it may be best to ring us pri­or to your vis­it to check if there is enough room for you!

2. The Hexiyurt has to be cleared of your stuff by 10am so it is open for vis­i­tors and as a work­shop space. (you can store your things in the man­sion shed instead dur­ing the day)

3. You are wel­come to stay up to 7 days, after which time you must leave as to give oth­ers the chance to stay over.

4. If, after stay­ing for 7 days, you wish to move in per­ma­nent­ly, we will have a meet­ing to dis­cuss it, to deter­mine if we have enough room, and then shall hope­ful­ly wel­come you in!

Capac­i­ty is a big issue on site at the moment and we are unlike­ly to allow many more peo­ple to move in on a per­ma­nent basis. How­ev­er as win­ter freezes over we might lose a few mem­bers and have room for some more. If you are des­per­ate to stay with us then show­ing us that your are a good, hard work­er who gets along with most peo­ple on camp and who is polite and cour­te­ous to all will defi­ant­ly help you 🙂

Soon after it start­ed

update from Sea Shepherd in Antartica fighting the whalers — arrest attempt & another ramming

Ady Gil Cap­tain Attempts to Serve Arrest War­rant to Cap­tain of the Shonan Maru No. 2

On Fri­day, Jan­u­ary 15, 2010, the crew of Sea Shep­herd Con­ser­va­tion Society’s ves­sel Bob Bark­er sur­prised, chased, and engaged the Shonan Maru No. 2, a secu­ri­ty ship from the ille­gal Japan­ese whal­ing fleet. The engage­ment took place between the hours of 8:30 pm and 12:30 am (AEST).

Ady Gil Cap­tain Attempts to Serve Arrest War­rant to Cap­tain of the Shonan Maru No. 2

On Fri­day, Jan­u­ary 15, 2010, the crew of Sea Shep­herd Con­ser­va­tion Society’s ves­sel Bob Bark­er sur­prised, chased, and engaged the Shonan Maru No. 2, a secu­ri­ty ship from the ille­gal Japan­ese whal­ing fleet. The engage­ment took place between the hours of 8:30 pm and 12:30 am (AEST).

The Shonan Maru No. 2 recent­ly achieved infamy when it vio­lent­ly attacked the Sea Shep­herd ves­sel Ady Gil, threat­en­ing the lives of its crew and sink­ing the ves­sel due to sus­tained dam­age. Today though, the Shonan Maru No. 2 was on the run from the Bob Bark­er, the irony being that Sea Shep­herd adheres to a strict pol­i­cy of non-vio­lence and has an unblem­ished 30+ year record of nev­er caus­ing or sus­tain­ing any seri­ous injuries while at sea.

Under New Zealand law, a cit­i­zen is empow­ered to serve an arrest war­rant on a sus­pect for a crime that car­ries a penal­ty in excess of eight years impris­on­ment. The charge of attempt­ed mur­der qual­i­fies and thus Cap­tain Pete Bethune act­ed in accor­dance with New Zealand law in his attempt to serve the cap­tain of the Shonan Maru No. 2 who delib­er­ate­ly sank his ship and almost killed his crew and him­self.

After a sur­prise launch, one of Sea Shepherd’s small boats snuck up on the Shonan Maru No. 2 and over a peri­od of more than four hours the Bob Bark­er slow­ly closed the gap and harassed the ves­sel, order­ing it to stop and sub­mit to arrest for the crime of attempt­ed mur­der on the crew of the Ady Gil. Each eva­sive maneu­ver from the Shonan Maru No. 2 cost the whalers crit­i­cal speed.

Said Cap­tain Paul Wat­son, Pres­i­dent and Founder of Sea Shep­herd, “Cap­tain Pete Bethune had lit­tle choice but to attempt to serve the arrest war­rant him­self. Down here at the edge of nowhere, with­out back up from his gov­ern­ment, he found he was the only sher­iff in town. A cap­tain of a ship that has been sunk by anoth­er cap­tain has the author­i­ty to bring his attack­er to jus­tice. Cap­tain Bethune has been attempt­ing to do just that.”

Attempts by this ille­gal whal­ing ves­sel to dis­cour­age the small boats launched by the Bob Bark­er includ­ed the use of Long Range Acoustic Devices (LRADs), sev­er­al very high-pres­sure water can­nons, and eva­sive maneu­vers. Some of the crew aboard the Shonan Maru No. 2 were also wear­ing cylin­ders on their backs attached to (as yet uniden­ti­fied) hand-held devices resem­bling weapons.

Once it became appar­ent that the Shonan Maru No. 2 would not sub­mit to the arrest, the Bob Bark­er turned around to con­tin­ue the hunt for the fac­to­ry ship of the ille­gal Japan­ese fleet. This will prove dif­fi­cult with the Shonan Maru No. 2 con­tin­u­ing to fol­low and mon­i­tor the Bob Bark­er, but Sea Shepherd’s flag ship Steve Irwin is also on the prowl for the ille­gal whal­ing fleet, and hopes are high that the float­ing house of blood known as the Nis­shin Maru will soon be located—and shut down.

—

Feb­ru­ary 6 2010
Bob Bark­er Rammed by Ille­gal Whaler

Nis­han Maru rams Bob Bark­er­At 1209 PM Fre­man­tle, Aus­tralia time, the Yushin Maru 3 inten­tion­al­ly rammed the Sea Shep­herd ship Bob Bark­er, pen­e­trat­ing it’s hull and endan­ger­ing the lives of it¹s crew. The col­li­sion occurred at 65 degrees 21 South, 67 degrees 58 East, about 180 miles off Cape Darn­ley in the Aus­tralian Antarc­tic Ter­ri­to­ry.

The Bob Bark­er had been active­ly block­ing the slip­way of the Nis­shin Maru, the Japan­ese whal­ing fleet’s fac­to­ry ship when the col­li­sion occurred. Four har­poon ships, the Yushin Maru 1, 2, and 3 and Shonan Maru 2, were cir­cling and mak­ing near pass­es to the stern and bow of the Sea Shep­herd ves­sel. The Bob Bark­er did not move from its posi­tion. At which point, the Yushin Maru 3 inten­tion­al­ly rammed the Bob Bark­er, cre­at­ing a 3‑foot long 4‑inch deep gash in the mid star­board side of the Sea Shep­herd ves­sel above the water­line.

No crew was injured dur­ing the col­li­sion. The Bob Bark­er con­tin­ues to block the slip­way of the Nis­shin Maru, pre­vent­ing the trans­fer of slaugh­tered whales and effec­tive­ly shut­ting down ille­gal whal­ing oper­a­tions.

The inci­dent demon­strates a con­tin­ued esca­la­tion of vio­lence by the ille­gal whalers in the South­ern Ocean Whale Sanc­tu­ary.

Said Cap­tain Paul Wat­son from the bridge of the Steve Irwin, cur­rent­ly en route to join the action, “Because the whalers got away basi­cal­ly scot-free with the out­ra­geous sink­ing of the Ady Gil, they now appar­ent­ly think they can do what­ev­er they want and they appear to have no qualms about endan­ger­ing Sea Shep­herd crew. What we real­ly need is for the gov­ern­ments of Aus­tralia and New Zealand to step up and start enforc­ing mar­itime laws in these waters, or who know what the whalers will do next. Aus­tralian and New Zealand lives are at risk every day in these waters.”

The crew of the Bob Bark­er noticed that the Yushin Maru 3 stopped mov­ing in the water short­ly after the impact, and appeared to be falling behind as the Bob Bark­er main­tained its posi­tion on the stern of the Nis­shin Maru. It’s pos­si­ble the Yushin Maru 3 dam­aged itself in the col­li­sion.

The Japan­ese whalers are far more aggres­sive this year than in past cam­paigns.

Non Commercial House is gone again…

On Wednes­day 3rd Feb at 9.20 am, High Court Bailiffs came round the Non Com­mer­cial House Free Shop, armed pre­sum­ably with a resti­tu­tion war­rant, and evict­ed the place and i

Non-Commercial House 1Non-Commercial House 2Non-Commercial House 3On Wednes­day 3rd Feb at 9.20 am, High Court Bailiffs came round the Non Com­mer­cial House Free Shop, armed pre­sum­ably with a resti­tu­tion war­rant, and evict­ed the place and its occupiers.Owners and Bailiffs seemed quite hap­py to pre­vent us from run­ning a FreeShop (oooooh, scary, giv­ing out shit for free!!!!) and mak­ing some more peo­ple home­less because they want to keep their build­ing emp­ty for anoth­er cou­ple of years.

Once a per­son com­ing into the shop sim­ply asked: “but why do they want to evict you?” Thats a very good ques­tion isn’t it? Why? Prob­a­bly hun­dreds of rea­sons, just pick your favorite one. Maybe the rea­son they want us out is exact­ly why we’re mov­ing in! 🙂

So the Non Com­mer­cial House Free Shop is gone. It’s been an amaz­ing project, so many peo­ple just pass­ing by, com­ing in, hav­ing a quick chat, being so shocked that this was a squat and that some of the peo­ple they were talk­ing to were actu­al­ly here in rela­tion to their anar­chist pol­i­tics, tak­ing a cou­ple of cool things they liked, promis­ing to bring some of their own unused stuff (and some­times actu­al­ly doing it!!!!).

Apart from hav­ing loads of peo­ple giv­ing and tak­ing the most incred­i­ble stuff on open­ing days, many com­ple­men­tary activ­i­ties hap­pened in the house: bike repairs, par­ties, Span­ish lessons, moth­ers’ gath­er­ing, work­shop of noth­ing, polyamory work­shop, squat­ting meet­ings, wire­less hack­ing, queer fash­ion show, film screen­ings and box­ing in the base­ment, etc

It’s also been so much fun for every­one involved that it would be sur­pris­ing not to see some more FreeShop blos­som­ing lat­er this year…

https://london.indymedia.org/groups/non-commercial-house
email: non­com­mer­cial­house at riseup.net

Demonstrations in Kenya against Ethiopian dam

2 Feb­ru­ary 2010

Demon­stra­tors have protest­ed in four towns in Kenya, against the con­struc­tion of a con­tro­ver­sial dam that threat­ens the sur­vival of a hun­dred thou­sand indige­nous peo­ple through­out the Low­er Omo Val­ley in Ethiopia and around Lake Turkana in Kenya.

Lake Turkana2 Feb­ru­ary 2010

Demon­stra­tors have protest­ed in four towns in Kenya, against the con­struc­tion of a con­tro­ver­sial dam that threat­ens the sur­vival of a hun­dred thou­sand indige­nous peo­ple through­out the Low­er Omo Val­ley in Ethiopia and around Lake Turkana in Kenya.

Ethiopia’s Omo Riv­er is a life­line for var­i­ous tribes, who cul­ti­vate crops on the fer­tile flood­plains in an oth­er­wise chal­leng­ing envi­ron­ment. The riv­er is the largest source for Kenya’s famous Lake Turkana, the most saline of Africa’s large lakes, essen­tial to the sur­vival of many Kenyan tribes. The Low­er Omo Val­ley and Lake Turkana are both UNESCO World Her­itage sites, in recog­ni­tion of the ‘excep­tion­al’ con­di­tions there.

Friends of Lake Turkana organ­ised the simul­ta­ne­ous demon­stra­tions, but had to hold a press con­fer­ence in Nairo­bi, because of a ban on pub­lic demon­stra­tions in the cap­i­tal.

A FoLT rep­re­sen­ta­tive said, ‘Based on research and advice from envi­ron­men­tal­ists, we the Friends of Lake Turkana (FoLT) are con­cerned about the dras­tic two year infill­ing of the dam as well as the lim­it­ed amount of water to be let out into Lake Turkana to main­tain eco­log­i­cal needs.’

In Ethiopia it is much hard­er for peo­ple to demon­strate against the project. The gov­ern­ment has intro­duced leg­is­la­tion to stop local organ­i­sa­tions from work­ing on human rights, democ­ra­cy, jus­tice and law issues. Most peo­ple know vir­tu­al­ly noth­ing about the dam and its impacts.

The Ital­ian com­pa­ny Sali­ni Con­strut­tori has already built one third of the dam, called Gibe III. The Ital­ian gov­ern­ment and var­i­ous multi­na­tion­al banks are now con­sid­er­ing fund­ing the project.

How­ev­er, inde­pen­dent experts say it will dis­rupt the sea­son­al flood­ing of the Low­er Omo Val­ley, dec­i­mat­ing the forests around the riv­er and mak­ing it almost impos­si­ble for the tribes of the val­ley to grow their crops.

Sev­er­al NGOs have made for­mal com­plaints to the Africa Devel­op­ment Bank urg­ing it not to fund the dam.

The vol­ume of water flow­ing in to Lake Turkana is like­ly to fall dra­mat­i­cal­ly. Tribes includ­ing the Turkana, Das­sanech, Rendille and Sam­bu­ru rely on lake­side live­stock graz­ing, crop cul­ti­va­tion, as well as fish­ing in the lake itself.

Sur­vival is call­ing on the Ethiopi­an gov­ern­ment to freeze the dam project until an inde­pen­dent envi­ron­men­tal and social impact assess­ment has been car­ried out and the Omo Val­ley tribes have been prop­er­ly con­sult­ed.

http://www.friendsoflaketurkana.org/