Australia’s oldest coal mine blockaded, and three climate camps

500 protest and 13 arrest­ed in peace­ful block­ade of Aus­trali­a’s old­est coal mine

500 protest and 13 arrest­ed in peace­ful block­ade of Aus­trali­a’s old­est coal mine
Water not Coal banner hang in mine
Sun­day, Octo­ber 11, Helens­burgh NSW – More than 500 peo­ple have marched to the front gates of the Met­ro­pol­i­tan Col­lieries where 50 Cli­mate Camp pro­test­ers are occu­py­ing the entrance road to the mine. They are protest­ing the mine’s expan­sion and voic­ing con­cerns over water, cli­mate and jobs in NSW.

13 peo­ple were arrest­ed on Sun­day in total. Eight at the block­ade were giv­en $350 fines for tres­pass and will not face court. Five peo­ple were arrest­ed ear­li­er in the day at an action stop­ping work at Den­dro­bi­um mine and charged with tres­pass.

Con­cerned locals showed-up in Helens­burgh in droves despite reports that intim­i­da­tion tac­tics being used in the lead-up and through­out the camp.

“My fam­i­ly came to Helens­burgh 100 years ago, there are four gen­er­a­tions of coal min­ers in my fam­i­ly buried in the local ceme­tery. My grand­fa­thers went to war to fight for what they believe in; I con­tin­ue that lega­cy and believe that we need to stop min­ing coal and fight to stop cli­mate change. That’s why I’m here,” says Matt from
Stan­well Tops.

“While Peabody and the Gov­ern­ment are play­ing the ‘jobs’ card, it is lit­tle more than a fee­ble attempt at a polit­i­cal wedge – the real­i­ty is that the expan­sion of pol­lut­ing indus­tries is being done reck­less­ly and com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers will not tol­er­ate it”, says Cli­mate Camp Spokesper­son Jess Miller.

As report­ed in the The Age on Fri­day, Peabody spokesper­son Jen­nifer Mor­gans told AAP, “[The mine expan­sion] would also cre­ate an esti­mat­ed 350 new jobs, dou­bling the cur­rent work­force to 700, while pro­vid­ing about 1000 indi­rect jobs through­out the Illawar­ra region.” How­ev­er accord­ing to Peabody’s own web­site, “[the] oper­a­tional work­force is expect­ed to remain sta­ble at 320 peo­ple” with an “addi­tion­al short-term con­struc­tion work­force of up to 50 peo­ple”.

Coal com­mu­ni­ties net­work Rivers SOS are mount­ing a legal chal­lenge in the Land and Envi­ron­ment court against Plan­ning Min­is­ter Kristi­na Keneal­ly, chal­leng­ing the legal­i­ty of the min­ing approval process.

Stills and Video Image: 0428367362 (Dami­an Bak­er)
Inter­view 0409 490 711 (Jess Miller)

Cli­mate Camp New South Wales had been tak­ing place for the 3 days before­hand.

Five peo­ple were arrest­ed after lock­ing them­selves on to the con­vey­or belt at Den­dro­bi­um coalmine at Mount Kem­bla before dawn on Sun­day.

Observers said the pro­test­ers scaled a crane and hung a ban­ner read­ing “Water Not Coal”.

In sep­a­rate news, Cli­mate Camp South Aus­tralia was held between 24–27 Sep­tem­ber in the Port Augus­ta region, and held a ral­ly out­side a pow­er plant.

Camp for Cli­mate Action 2009 West­ern Aus­tralia will take place in mid-Decem­ber.

ELF Torches Telmex Cell Tower in Mexico State

The night of Octo­ber 4th we head­ed into the brush sur­round­ing the Ati­za­pan viaduct above the Mex­i­co-Tolu­ca high­way in Mex­i­co State to sab­o­tage one of the many prop­er­ties that belong to the earth-destroy­ing Telmex com­pa­ny. It was a huge cell phone tow­er pro­tect­ed by a met­al fence. The envi­ron­men­tal impact of plac­ing a tow­er like this on the land is unques­tion­ably harm­ful, since to place it in this nat­ur­al area they had to cut many trees where dif­fer­ent species of ani­mals lived; in addi­tion to the many waves that these tow­ers emit they leave the land bar­ren and dry.

The night of Octo­ber 4th we head­ed into the brush sur­round­ing the Ati­za­pan viaduct above the Mex­i­co-Tolu­ca high­way in Mex­i­co State to sab­o­tage one of the many prop­er­ties that belong to the earth-destroy­ing Telmex com­pa­ny. It was a huge cell phone tow­er pro­tect­ed by a met­al fence. The envi­ron­men­tal impact of plac­ing a tow­er like this on the land is unques­tion­ably harm­ful, since to place it in this nat­ur­al area they had to cut many trees where dif­fer­ent species of ani­mals lived; in addi­tion to the many waves that these tow­ers emit they leave the land bar­ren and dry.

In ana­lyz­ing these effects as well as oth­er things, we arrived at the con­clu­sion that a sab­o­tage must hap­pen right now against this machine that destroys the ecosys­tem and expands civ­i­liza­tion! We will not allow com­pa­nies like Telmex to con­tin­ue indulging in the lux­u­ry of going around turn­ing the earth into a com­mod­i­ty for a few to prof­it from with­out hav­ing their prop­er­ties receive a crush­ing response from eco-rad­i­cals.

That’s why we assem­bled an incen­di­ary device with six liters of gaso­line, we pen­e­trat­ed this pri­vate prop­er­ty, destroy­ing their fences, and put the device high above the cables which con­duct­ed tele­phone sig­nals. As expect­ed our gift worked per­fect­ly and the fire com­plete­ly destroyed the cables in addi­tion to pow­er box­es that they con­nect­ed to below. They explod­ed leav­ing this tow­er of the filthy Car­los Slim unus­able, caus­ing thou­sands of pesos in loss­es.
This action is ded­i­cat­ed to all the cells that in Sep­tem­ber car­ried out acts that appeared up in mass media out­lets. The war against every­thing that seeks to dom­i­nate us con­tin­ues. Let’s con­tin­ue on!

Also through this com­mu­nique we wish to express our most sin­cere and direct sol­i­dar­i­ty with those impris­oned on the sec­ond of Octo­ber dur­ing the State repres­sion against stu­dent groups, alter­na­tive media reporters and anar­chists in the nation­al cap­i­tal and in Oax­a­ca. We know that busi­ness­es (includ­ing Telmex) demand that the state act as their ser­vant so unequiv­o­cal­ly that the state will seize inno­cent peo­ple; we have all wit­nessed the inep­ti­tude and sham it car­ried out
against col­lege activist Ram­sés Vil­lar­real.

Sol­i­dar­i­ty with indi­vid­u­als now in prison, by fight­ing direct­ly against the riot police, should hap­pen by any means. We do not know these peo­ple in prison and we are not in the least inter­est­ed in pros­e­cut­ing them as sure­ly the soft-anar­chists, the Stal­in­ist-anar­chists, the red-union­ists and oth­er shit­ty reformist groups would be, nei­ther are we inter­est­ed in say­ing whether they are inno­cent or guilty; that is a mea­sure that the state and its judges decide. Our part is to change tac­tics to fight and return to the state all the blows that it has giv­en us. Today is the time, the insur­gency is day by day and we will no longer wait to arm our rev­o­lu­tion.

Frente de Lib­eración de la Tier­ra

Span­ish:

La noche del 4 de Octubre nos dirigi­mos den­tro de la maleza en el via­duc­to Ati­za­pan, sobre la autopista Mex­i­co-Tolu­ca
en el Esta­do de Mex­i­co; para sabotear una de las tan­tas propiedades de la empre­sa destruc­to­ra de la tier­ra Telmex, se
trata­ba de una gran torre de tele­fonía celu­lar la que esta­ba pro­te­gi­da por una val­la metáli­ca. El impacto ambi­en­tal de
implan­tar una torre como ésta en la tier­ra es indis­cutible­mente dañi­na, pues para impon­er­la en la nat­u­raleza se tuvieron
que talar difer­entes arboles en donde vivían dis­tin­tas especies ani­males, con­tribuyen­do así a que muchas de las ondas
que emiten tales tor­res dejen a la tier­ra estéril y seca.

Al analizar estas reper­cu­siones y demás cosas, lleg­amos a la con­clusión de que un sab­o­ta­je con­tra tal esta­do de
maquinar­ias destruc­toras de los eco­sis­temas y que expanden la civ­i­lización se debe de dar aho­ra! No vamos a per­mi­tir que
las empre­sas como Telmex sigan con su tradi­cional lujo de andar con­vir­tien­do a la tier­ra en una mer­cancía para lucro de
unxs cuan­txs sin que sus propiedades reciban una respues­ta con­tun­dente de lxs eco-rad­i­cales.

Es por eso que hemos arma­do un dis­pos­i­ti­vo incen­di­ario con seis litros de gasoli­na, hemos pen­e­tra­do tal propiedad ?
pri­va­da? destruyen­do sus rejas y hemos puesto tal arte­fac­to arri­ba de los cables que con­ducían señales tele­fóni­cas. Como
se esper­a­ba nue­stro rega­lo fun­ciono a la per­fec­ción y el fuego destruyo por com­ple­to los cables además de que las cajas
de poder que se encon­tra­ban deba­jo de éstos explotaron dejan­do la torre propiedad del asqueroso Car­los Slim inuti­liza­da,
cau­san­do per­di­das de miles de pesos.

Esta acción esta ded­i­ca­da a todas las célu­las que en sep­tiem­bre hicieron acto de pres­en­cia en todos los medios de in
comu­ni­cación masi­va, la guer­ra con­tra todo lo que nos quiere dom­i­nar con­tin­ua, sig­amos ade­lante!

Tam­bién por medio de este reporte quer­e­mos expre­sar nues­tra mas sin­cera sol­i­dari­dad direc­ta con las per­sonas pre­sas el
pasa­do dos de octubre durante la repre­sión imple­men­ta­da por el esta­do con­tra gru­pos de estu­di­antes, reporterxs de medios
alter­na­tivos y anar­quis­tas en la cap­i­tal del país y en Oax­a­ca, sabe­mos tam­bién que las empre­sas (en las que tam­bién se
encuen­tra Telmex) exigió a su sirviente el esta­do de man­era tajante que se apre­saran per­sonas después de la por todxs
vista, inep­ti­tud y mon­ta­je que armaron con­tra el activista uni­ver­si­tario Ram­sés Vil­lar­real.

La sol­i­dari­dad con los indi­vid­u­os aho­ra pre­sos, por pelear de man­era direc­ta con­tra los anti dis­tur­bios debe de
man­i­fes­tarse de todas man­eras. Nosotrxs no cono­ce­mos a estas per­sonas no nos intere­sa en lo mas mín­i­mo crim­i­nalizar­los
como segu­ra­mente lo harán las agru­pa­ciones de anar­co-bland­xs, anar­co-estal­in­istas, sindi­cal­is­tas rojos y demás caga­da
reformista, tam­poco esta­mos intere­sa­dos en decir si son inocentes o si son cul­pa­bles esa es una medi­da que el esta­do y
sus jue­ces dic­tan, pero lo que si nos cor­re­sponde, es cam­biar de estrate­gia para luchar y regre­sar todos los golpes al
esta­do que nos ha dado, hoy es el tiem­po, la insur­rec­ción es día a día y no vamos a esper­ar mas para armar nues­tra
rev­olu­ción.

Frente de Lib­eración de la Tier­ra

http://www.elfpressoffice.org

517 years of resistance: Global mobilisation for Mother Earth, Monday 12 October

517 YEARS OF RESISTANCE

12th Octo­ber is an inter­na­tion­al day of protest in sol­i­dar­i­ty with indige­nous peo­ple and against glob­al warm­ing — a “Glob­al mobil­i­sa­tion for Moth­er Earth”

517 YEARS OF RESISTANCE

12th Octo­ber is an inter­na­tion­al day of protest in sol­i­dar­i­ty with indige­nous peo­ple and against glob­al warm­ing — a “Glob­al mobil­i­sa­tion for Moth­er Earth”

Come and join us to sup­port the “Min­ga” of indige­nous resis­tance called by the Coor­di­nado­ra And­i­na de Orga­ni­za­ciones Indi­ge­nas (CAOI). We sup­port the strug­gle of Latin Amer­i­can native peo­ples and protest against the Free Trade Agree­ment with the Euro­pean Union and agro-fuels.

MEETING POINTS (Mon 12–10-09)

4:45 Colom­bian Embassy 3 Hans Cres­cent SW1 (Knights­bridge tube)
5:30 Peru­vian Embassy 52 Sloane Street SW1
5:50 Span­ish Embassy Che­sham Place SW1
6:30 UK For­eign Office Par­lia­ment Street SW1 (West­min­ster tube)
7pm Depart­ment for Ener­gy and Cli­mate Change 3 White­hall Place SW1 – where we will join the Agro-fuels don’t ROC(k)! demon­stra­tion against renew­able ener­gy sub­si­dies for Agro-fuels called by the Cam­paign against Cli­mate Change, Bio­fu­el­watch and Food Not Fuel.

NO TO EU FREE TRADE AGREEMENTS!

The Euro­pean Union (EU) plans to open up the Andean region’s ser­vices, nat­ur­al resources and bio­di­ver­si­ty to even greater despo­li­a­tion by push­ing through Free Trade Agree­ments that favour multi­na­tion­al cor­po­ra­tions. The deals made behind closed doors by the gov­ern­ments of Colom­bia and Peru are a threat to Andean inte­gra­tion. The EU is try­ing to iso­late the pro­gres­sive gov­ern­ments of Bolivia, Ecuador and Venezuela. Along­side them are the indige­nous peo­ples and their organ­i­sa­tions who were nev­er con­sult­ed over the nego­ti­a­tion process. Indige­nous peo­ples do not recog­nise the EU agree­ments because they will destroy ances­tral ter­ri­to­r­i­al rights and col­lec­tive knowl­edge. The UK gov­ern­ment is par­tic­u­lar­ly respon­si­ble for this pol­i­cy — the for­mer EU Trade Com­mis­sion­er was Peter Man­del­son who has been replaced by anoth­er Labour politi­cian, Baroness Cathy Ash­ton.

FOOD NOT FUEL!

The UK gov­ern­ment is divert­ing renew­able ener­gy sub­si­dies to sub­sidise pow­er sta­tions that use agro-fuels. While the UK’s last but one fac­to­ry pro­duc­ing wind tur­bines has closed and solar ener­gy firms are strug­gling, vast “renew­able ener­gy” fund­ing is going to agro-fuels which actu­al­ly make glob­al warm­ing worse and threat food secu­ri­ty around the world. In Colom­bia the cul­ti­va­tion of African Palm for agro-fuels is linked with dis­place­ment and vio­lence, while destroy­ing bio­di­ver­si­ty and the fer­til­i­ty of the soil.

INDIGENOUS RESISTANCE — VIVA LA MINGA!

The indige­nous peo­ple have had enough; they will not put up with false promis­es, lies and trick­ery any more. They are out on the streets fight­ing: to “lib­er­ate Moth­er Earth” from the destruc­tive alliance between multi­na­tion­al cor­po­ra­tions and local elites, and for a dig­ni­fied future for their chil­dren and their com­mu­ni­ties. They are a moral force ris­ing from below to reclaim what is just­ly theirs, life itself.

Bolivia Sol­i­dar­i­ty Cam­paign · Colom­bia Sol­i­dar­i­ty Cam­paign · Hands Off Venezuela · Latin Amer­i­can Work­ers Asso­ci­a­tion · Move­ment of Ecuado­ri­ans in the UK · Polo Democráti­co (UK) · Rock around the Block­ade ·
P&p Coor­di­nado­ra Lati­no-Amer­i­cana c/o PO Box 8446, Lon­don N17 6NZ

please click in the link below to down­load poster:
https://www.yousendit.com/download/ZW9Ea3NaY3lEbUkwTVE9PQ

BAA to back down on Third Runway — or maybe not!

Update: Insist­ing that expan­sion is still on the cards, BAA said: “We remain con­vinced that a third run­way is the only viable, cost­ed and thought-through way of meet­ing the need for extra run­way capac­i­ty to main­tain this country’s glob­al con­nec­tions to the rest of the world.”

Update: Insist­ing that expan­sion is still on the cards, BAA said: “We remain con­vinced that a third run­way is the only viable, cost­ed and thought-through way of meet­ing the need for extra run­way capac­i­ty to main­tain this country’s glob­al con­nec­tions to the rest of the world.”

It also described the process of draw­ing up a plan­ning appli­ca­tion as “com­plex,” adding that it “was always going to take until after the gen­er­al elec­tion”.

—–

Activists had rea­son to cheer as the Third Run­way at Heathrow was kicked into touch this week­end. The news comes hot on the heels of the announce­ment that E.on has delayed plans for a new Coal Pow­ered Pow­er sta­tion at Kingsnorth. Direct Action is bring­ing Direct Results.

At the Con­ser­v­a­tive Par­ty Con­fer­ence, senior BAA fig­ures revealed that, if the Tories win the next elec­tion, the com­pa­ny will give up the fight for a third run­way — accord­ing to today’s Sun­day Times.

There­sa Vil­liers, the shad­ow trans­port sec­re­tary, said: “It seems BAA has wok­en up to the fact that we mean what we say on Heathrow and that if we win the gen­er­al elec­tion there will be no third run­way.”

BAA has said that before the elec­tion it will not sub­mit a plan­ning appli­ca­tion and will not sign large con­tracts in an attempt to “bounce” a future Con­ser­v­a­tive gov­ern­ment to go ahead.

The Con­ser­v­a­tives had already warned BAA that they would not be pushed into accept­ing a run­way by this tac­tic and told BAA not to sign any con­struc­tion deals.

Pub­licly, BAA exec­u­tives are urg­ing the Tories not to “close the door” on expan­sion plants and say they are still work­ing on the project. But The Sun­day Times reports that they admit­ted they were sur­ren­der­ing in a meet­ing with aides to Vil­liers last week.

Chile: Luxury cars, meat markets, bank branch vandalized

report­ed anony­mous­ly (trans­la­tion):

“San­ti­a­go, between Octo­ber 3 and 4, $hile. There are many rea­sons why we went out to dis­rupt the order of those who we con­sid­er our ene­mies. Dur­ing an impromp­tu tour of the dis­gust­ing city, we found bour­geois prop­er­ty, butch­ers, doc­tors and bankers, those who pro­tect and main­tain their lives through this nau­se­at­ing sys­tem of dom­i­na­tion, those who love the monot­o­ny of work-con­sump­tion, aim­ing to get just a lit­tle pow­er, that’s what gives them the tran­quil­i­ty they need to sleep at night.

report­ed anony­mous­ly (trans­la­tion):

“San­ti­a­go, between Octo­ber 3 and 4, $hile. There are many rea­sons why we went out to dis­rupt the order of those who we con­sid­er our ene­mies. Dur­ing an impromp­tu tour of the dis­gust­ing city, we found bour­geois prop­er­ty, butch­ers, doc­tors and bankers, those who pro­tect and main­tain their lives through this nau­se­at­ing sys­tem of dom­i­na­tion, those who love the monot­o­ny of work-con­sump­tion, aim­ing to get just a lit­tle pow­er, that’s what gives them the tran­quil­i­ty they need to sleep at night.

We sab­o­taged:
— 4 lux­u­ry cars (3 4x4 trucks and 1 car) had their tires split.
— 4 lux­u­ry cars were scratched with a sharp, met­al tool, leav­ing chaot­ic designs ruin­ing the expen­sive paint jobs.
— 6 meat mar­kets end­ed-up with the locks on the doors and the pad­locks on their shut­ters sealed with met­al pieces and super­glue.
— A psy­chi­atric clin­ic was left with its doors glued.
— A Ban­coEs­ta­do bank branch was attacked with stones, result­ing in two win­dows and the entry door shat­tered.

Sym­bols of progress and pow­er, lead­ing pro­mot­ers of envi­ron­men­tal destruc­tion, from tox­ic sub­stances and the use of fuel to the dis­gust­ing smoke they spew as they dri­ve, they build the roads defor­est­ing and killing thou­sands of nat­ur­al hectares and fol­low­ing their progress lie the cold bleed­ing bod­ies of so many ani­mals. Because of this we decid­ed to attack these machines.
Muti­lat­ed and piled up bod­ies as mere objects of con­sump­tion, this is the image that does­n’t both­er any­one, with a blind­fold over their eyes; anthro­pocen­trism is respon­si­ble for mak­ing humans believe they are mas­ters of the Earth, exploit­ing for their own well-being every­thing that exists on the plan­et. It’s because of this that we glued the meat mar­kets, where the butch­ers had to replace and repair the locks and pad­locks.
Cen­ters of con­di­tion­ing, repres­sors of inher­ent impuls­es that pigeon­hole peo­ple accord­ing to their con­duct; insti­tu­tions that seek to change and mold us so we are adapt­ed to their instru­ments of con­trol, com­mit­ted to exter­mi­nat­ing all dis­sent­ing ideas of nor­mal­cy and order; that’s why we sealed the doors of a psy­chi­atric clin­ic, while offi­cials were still inside. In this place they don’t lock up the peo­ple who write diag­noses.
Insti­tu­tions that pro­mote exploita­tion and progress at the expense of crush­ing and enslav­ing peo­ple, ani­mals and the earth.

For cap­i­tal­ism every­thing is a source of pow­er and prof­it; intro­duc­ing the ide­ol­o­gy of pow­er through­out the world, dis­guised in mul­ti­ple forms; it is because of the pow­er that the banks rep­re­sent that we attacked a bank branch; with a large stone we hit the met­al struc­ture, break­ing two win­dows and the door.

We know that these acts of sab­o­tage were not an imped­i­ment to the tar­gets and they will con­tin­ue their work; it was only a momen­tary break and an incon­ve­nience to those who saw the extent of our exploits.

This is a min­i­mal ges­ture of sol­i­dar­i­ty and a greet­ing for all those who have felt the ene­my’s blows on their skin, who have been encaged and sep­a­rat­ed from their loved ones. We salute our com­rade Axel Oso­rio, who has demon­strat­ed that the cages did not stop him and that his strug­gle con­tin­ues from the dun­geons, and to Cris­t­ian Can­ci­no, accused of being a sup­pli­er of gun­pow­der, to com­rades Pablo Car­ba­jal and Matías Cas­tro accused of the attack on the PDI. To com­rades Daniel and Fran­cis­co, recent­ly on tri­al in Italy for rob­bery and sub­ver­sive asso­ci­a­tion. To our com­rades in Greece accused of belong­ing to a cell respon­si­ble for bomb­ings, a cell which con­tin­ues attack­ing, show­ing the futil­i­ty of the pow­er­ful who accuse peo­ple who are unre­lat­ed to the attacks. To com­rades in Mex­i­co, where the pow­er­ful also kid­napped a com­rade, hold­ing him respon­si­ble for the Sep­tem­ber bomb­ings, com­rades stronger than the pow­er­ful who try to stop the attacks on author­i­ty.

The war has also cost the deaths of many com­rades through­out the world, recent­ly it took away our friend Mau­ri from us, the prod­uct of an acci­dent that could have been avoid­ed. Mau­ri will be remem­bered as the war­rior that he was, lov­ing com­rades and desir­ing the death of ene­mies, a sav­age in the war against soci­ety, Mau­ri this is for you and as well as all the actions that are still to come!
For the com­pan­ion Diego Rios, who 4 months ago made his escape and went under­ground refus­ing to fall into the hands of the author­i­ty. To him we say, flee, Diego, run and con­tin­ue to expose the vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty of the pow­er­ful, from here we embrace every word of your com­mu­niques and with these actions we salute you.

We invite all the com­rades who read this mes­sage to con­tin­ue attack­ing the pow­er­ful on all fronts. We salute in the spir­it of war, and we send our strength through action.

This is just the begin­ning!

Ban­da Sal­va­je e Insur­rec­ta en Guer­ra Con­tra la Dom­i­nación [Wild Insur­gent Group in the War Against Dom­i­na­tion]”

Span­ish:

“San­ti­a­go entre el 3 y 4 de octubre, $hile. Muchas son las razones que nos ani­man a salir a sabotear el orden de quienes con­sid­er­amos nue­stros ene­mi­gos. En el tran­scur­so de un impro­visa­do recor­ri­do por la asquerosa ciu­dad, nos encon­tramos con propiedades de bur­gue­ses, matar­ifes, doc­tores y ban­queros, quienes defien­den y mantienen con sus vidas este­nau­se­abun­do sis­tema de dom­i­nación, amantes de la monot­o­nía del tra­ba­jo-con­sumo encam­i­na­dos por lograr con­seguir un poco de poder, lo que les da la tran­quil­i­dad que nece­si­tan para poder dormir.

Saboteamos:
— 4 vehícu­los de lujo (3 camione­tas 4x4 y 1 auto) ter­mi­naron con sus ruedas rajadas.
— 4 autos de lujo raya­dos con un ele­men­to metáli­co y filoso, dejan­do mar­cas de caóti­cos dis­eños arru­inan­do sus cos­tosas capas de pin­tu­ra.
— 6 Car­nicerías, las cuales amanecieron con las cer­raduras de las puer­tas y los can­da­dos de las corti­nas metáli­cas sel­l­adas con peda­zos de met­al y pega­men­toex­tra­fuerte.
— Un clíni­ca de diag­nós­ti­co psiquiátri­co que­do con sus puer­tas sel­l­adas con peda­zos de met­al y pega­men­to extra­fuerte.
— Una sucur­sal del Ban­coEs­ta­do fue ape­drea­da, resul­tan­do dos cristales y la puer­ta de acce­so destrozadas.

Sím­bo­los de pro­gre­so y poder, prin­ci­pales pro­mo­tores de la destruc­ción ambi­en­tal con sus­tan­cias tóx­i­cas, des­de el uso de com­bustible has­ta el asqueroso humo que expe­len al moverse, con­struyen sus caminos defor­e­stando y asesinan­do miles de hec­táreas nat­u­rales y tras su avance yacen los cuer­pos­fríos y desan­gra­dos de muchos ani­males. Por eso decidi­mos atacar
estas máquinas.
Cuer­pos muti­la­dos y amon­ton­a­dos como sim­ples obje­tos de con­sumo, es este el panora­ma que no asom­bra a nadie, con una ven­da en los ojos el antropocen­tris­mo se encar­ga de hac­er creer que los humanos son amos de la Tier­ra, explotan­do para su bien todo lo que en el plan­e­ta existe, es por eso que sel­l­am­os estas­car­nicerías, donde los matar­ifes tuvieron que
cam­biar y reparar las cer­raduras y los can­da­dos.
Cen­tros de condi­cionamien­to, repre­sores de impul­sos inher­entes que encasil­lan a las per­sonas de acuer­do a sus con­duc­tas, insti­tu­ciones que bus­can trans­for­marnos en moldes adap­ta­dos a instru­men­tos de con­trol, empeña­dos en exter­mi­nar todo idea des­i­dente de la nor­mal­i­dad y el orden, es por eso que sel­l­am­os las puer­tas de una clíni­ca de diag­nós­ti­co
psi­aquiátri­co, cuan­do los fun­cionar­ios aún se encon­tra­ban den­tro, en este lugar no encier­ran a per­sonas solo se emiten eval­u­a­ciones.
Insti­tu­ciones pro­mo­toras de explotación y pro­gre­so, a cos­ta de aplas­tar y esclavizar a per­sonas, ani­males y la tier­ra. Para el cap­i­tal­is­mo todo es fuente de poder y ganan­cias, implan­tan­do la ide­ología del poder por todo el mun­do, dis­fraza­da demúlti­ples for­mas, es por el poder que rep­re­sen­tan los ban­cos que ata­camos una sucur­sal y con una gran piedra gol­peamos su estruc­tura metáli­ca, rompi­en­do dos cristales y la puer­ta de acce­so.

Sabe­mos que estos sab­o­ta­jes no fueron un imped­i­men­to para que los obje­tivos ata­ca­dos con­tin­uaran con sus labores, solo fue un frenomo­men­tá­neo y una inco­mo­di­dad para quienes apre­cia­ron nues­tras haz­a­ñas.

Éste es un mín­i­mo gesto de sol­i­dari­dad y un salu­do de áni­mo para todxs aque­l­lxs que han sen­ti­do en su piel los golpes del ene­mi­go, que han sido enjauladxs y sep­a­radxs de sus seres queridxs. Salu­damos al com­pañero Axel Oso­rio, que ha demostran­do que las jaulas no lo apa­gan y que su lucha con­tin­ua des­de las maz­mor­ras, a Cris­t­ian Can­ci­no acu­sa­do de ser provee­dor de pólvo­ra, a los com­pañeros Pablo Car­ba­jal y Matías Cas­tro acu­sa­dos del ataque a la PDI. A los com­pañeros Daniel y Fran­cis­co recien­te­mente juz­ga­dos en Italia por robo y aso­ciación sub­ver­si­va. A lxs com­pañerxs en Gre­cia acu­sadxs pertenecer a una célu­la respon­s­able de explo­siones, célu­la que a segui­do ata­can­do, mostran­do la inutil­i­dad del poder que acusa a per­sonas que no están rela­cionadas con los ataques. A lxs com­pañerxs en Méx­i­co, que tam­bién el poder les había secuestra­do a un com­pañero respon­s­abi­lizán­do­lo de los bom­bazos de sep­tiem­bre, com­pañerxs a ser fuertes que el poder inten­tara por todas las for­mas deten­er los ataques con­tra la autori­dad.

La guer­ra tam­bién a costa­do la muerte de muchxs com­pañerxs en todo el mun­do, recien­te­mente nos arreba­to al com­pa Mau­ri, pro­duc­to de un acci­dente que podría haber sido evi­ta­do. Mau­ri serás recor­da­do como el guer­rero que fuiste, aman­do a tus com­pañerxs y dese­an­do la muerte a tus ene­mi­gos, un sal­va­je en guer­ra con­tra la sociedad, Mau­ri para ti estas y todas las
acciones que realizare­mos!
Para el com­pañero Diego Ríos, quién ya hace 4 meses emprendió su fuga y asum­ió la clan­des­tinidad negán­dose a caer en las manos del la autori­dad.
Le dec­i­mos huye, Diego, huye y sigue exponien­do la vul­ner­a­bil­i­dad del poder, des­de aquí abrazamos cada pal­abra de tus comu­ni­ca­dos y con estas acciones te salu­damos.

Invi­ta­mos a todxs lxs com­pañerxs que lean este men­saje a con­tin­uar ata­can­do el poder des­de todos los frentes, áni­mo com­pañerxs que en la guer­ra nos salu­damos y damos fuerza medi­ante la acción.

Esto es solo el comien­zo!

Ban­da Sal­va­je e Insur­rec­ta en Guer­ra Con­tra la Dom­i­nación”

http://www.directaction.info

12,000 mink freed from fur farms, one farm to close

Media in Den­mark have report­ed that more than 10,000 mink were released from cages at Dan­ish fur farms this week. Media in Swe­den has report­ed that approx­i­mate­ly 1,000 mink were released from cages at a farm in Eksjo, Swe­den ear­ly on Octo­ber 5.

TWO FUR FARM RAIDS IN THREE DAYS, 10,000 MINK FREEDMedia in Den­mark have report­ed that more than 10,000 mink were released from cages at Dan­ish fur farms this week. Media in Swe­den has report­ed that approx­i­mate­ly 1,000 mink were released from cages at a farm in Eksjo, Swe­den ear­ly on Octo­ber 5.

TWO FUR FARM RAIDS IN THREE DAYS, 11,000 MINK FREED (Den­mark)

Media in Den­mark have report­ed that more than 11,000 mink were released from cages at Dan­ish fur farms this week. Dur­ing the night of Octo­ber 6, 6000 mink escaped from a farm near Søn­dervig after cages were opened and fences sur­round­ing the prop­er­ty were destroyed. Then, ear­ly on Octo­ber 9, 5000 mink were freed from cages at a farm in Fous­ing.
(pho­to: Morten Mel­hede / dagbladetringskjern.dk)

1000 MINK RELEASED FROM CAGES, FARM WILL CLOSE! (Swe­den)

Media has report­ed that approx­i­mate­ly 1,000 mink were released from cages at a farm in Eksjo, Swe­den ear­ly on Octo­ber 5.
Water pipes and equip­ment at the farm were also dam­aged. It was the fourth time that the farm had been tar­get­ed, most recent­ly in April.

The farmer has announced that the farm will close.

Source: Bite Back Mag­a­zine

Sabotage and digger-diving – work stopped twice in two days at Mainshill Wood

For the past two weeks Scot­tish Wood­lands and oth­ers con­tract­ed by Scot­tish Coal have been dev­as­tat­ing parts of Main­shill Wood, those beyond the Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp. Plan­ta­tion for­est is being felled at an alarm­ing rate, with mas­sive har­vest­ing machines and JCBs tear­ing up more of Scotland’s coun­try­side. Scot­tish Coal is estab­lish­ing its own site, south of the Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp and right in the mid­dle of Main­shill Wood. Your sol­i­dar­i­ty is urgent­ly need­ed – this work must be stopped.

Machinery on siteHarvesting machineryTree felling stopped at nightTree felling and machinery working close to tunnelsFor the past two weeks Scot­tish Wood­lands and oth­ers con­tract­ed by Scot­tish Coal have been dev­as­tat­ing parts of Main­shill Wood, those beyond the Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp. Plan­ta­tion for­est is being felled at an alarm­ing rate, with mas­sive har­vest­ing machines and JCBs tear­ing up more of Scotland’s coun­try­side. Scot­tish Coal is estab­lish­ing its own site, south of the Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp and right in the mid­dle of Main­shill Wood. Your sol­i­dar­i­ty is urgent­ly need­ed – this work must be stopped.

Sab­o­tage

An anony­mous com­mu­nique was received after three of the four large pieces of har­vest­ing machin­ery on site were sab­o­taged in the ear­ly hours of Thurs­day morn­ing. Work is on-going round the clock, but did not start until 4 or 5pm on Thurs­day, being delayed for many hours. The com­mu­nique reads:

“On the morn­ing of Thurs­day 8th of Octo­ber three heavy vehi­cles had their locks glued. These vehi­cles belong to Scot­tish Wood­lands Ltd, who have been sub­con­tract­ed by Scot­tish Coal to clear­fell Main­shill Wood.

The vehi­cles dam­aged have been work­ing to pre­pare the Main­shill Wood area for coal extrac­tion. If it is open cast­ed then it will join sev­er­al oth­er mines in the Dou­glas Val­ley, two of which are cur­rent­ly expand­ing.

Scot­tish Coal, the land own­er Lord Home and the gov­ern­ment and more than pre­pared to sac­ri­fice the health of local com­mu­ni­ties and envi­ron­ment, as well as con­tribute to cli­mate change and near­ly uni­ver­sal envi­ron­men­tal degra­da­tion for wages, bonus­es, tar­gets and prof­its.

This action was tak­en by a group of autonomous peo­ple in sol­i­dar­i­ty with all those who oppose the devel­op­ment of Main­shill Wood into an open cast coal mine.”

Dig­ger-Div­ing

On Tues­day night at around 9:30pm, long after it had got dark, res­i­dents of the Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp sud­den­ly realised that a mas­sive har­vest­ing machine was cut­ting through the last line of trees sep­a­rat­ing the camp from the rest of the site, dan­ger­ous­ly close to where peo­ple live and were sleep­ing, both in tree­hous­es and tun­nels.

Res­i­dents quick­ly sur­round­ed the machine, and tried to explain that the dri­ver was putting people’s lives at risk. The dri­ver, break­ing the com­pa­nies own health and safe­ty reg­u­la­tions, con­tin­ued work­ing despite peo­ple being with­in metres of the machine. At one point the saw blades on the end of the harvester’s arm were swung with­in a metre of a resident’s head. Even­tu­al­ly after much shout­ing and whis­tle-blow­ing, the har­vester was chased back to the access gate.

Short­ly after, anoth­er piece of heavy machin­ery that col­lects the felled trees tried to make its way up the access path, but was blocked by res­i­dents of the camp. The dri­ver refused to stop and kept mov­ing towards the peo­ple block­ing its path, and only did when it was clear that the wind­screen might be redec­o­rat­ed if the machine wasn’t stopped. One dri­ver exclaimed “I don’t care” in response to a res­i­dent shout­ing “you’re going to kill some­one!”, while the sec­ond dri­ver at one point jumped out of the cab in pur­suit of a res­i­dent and shout­ed “I’m going to kill you”.

That same night, a res­i­dent in a sur­round­ing com­mu­ni­ty had called Strath­clyde police after a house was attacked with air-rifles. The police didn’t both­er to show up. At the Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp, how­ev­er, with­in 20 min­utes two police vehi­cles and four offi­cers braved the mud and threat­ened to arrest any­one stop­ping work, claim­ing the res­i­dents were endan­ger­ing them­selves by com­ing close to the machin­ery, despite the fact that the machin­ery prac­ti­cal­ly came on to the camp! The only com­pro­mise was that Scot­tish Wood­lands agreed to stop felling trees at night.

The above high­t­lights the dis­re­gard that Scot­tish Wood­lands and Scot­tish Coal have for the safe­ty of Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp res­i­dents (not to men­tion the health of local com­mu­ni­ties) and how Strath­clyde Police are com­plic­it in pro­tect­ing prop­er­ty and the inter­ests of pri­vate busi­ness, and not peo­ple.

Come to Main­shill

Your sup­port and sol­i­dar­i­ty is urgent­ly need­ed at Main­shill. Even if just for a few hours, peo­ple are need­ed. You can go and stop work for the day, chop wood, build bar­ri­cades and defens­es, or do the wash­ing up. It is impos­si­ble to stress how fast the work on the site is hap­pen­ing, and how quick­ly the area is being dev­as­tat­ed.

Main­shill Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp
— e‑mail: mainshill@riseup.net
— Home­page: http://mainshill.noflag.org.uk/

*Hit the Production of Climate Chaos — get involved* — 13th December call for actions

The cli­mate cat­a­stro­phe has not hap­pened by ran­dom chance and the melt­ing glac­i­er is not its place. Our eco­nom­ic sys­tem, the way it pro­duces goods, and the way they are trans­port­ed and final­ly con­sumed is the root of cli­mate change.

The cli­mate cat­a­stro­phe has not hap­pened by ran­dom chance and the melt­ing glac­i­er is not its place. Our eco­nom­ic sys­tem, the way it pro­duces goods, and the way they are trans­port­ed and final­ly con­sumed is the root of cli­mate change.

We do not believe that this COP will solve the cli­mate cri­sis. The del­e­gates, NGOs and com­pa­ny rep­re­sen­ta­tives are stuck in an ide­ol­o­gy of nev­er end­ing eco­nom­ic growth and uni­ver­sal mar­ket solu­tions to all human-made prob­lems, such as eco­log­i­cal destruc­tion. Social jus­tice issues are con­se­quent­ly ignored.

On Decem­ber 13th we call for action on this eco­nom­ic sys­tem. We encour­age affin­i­ty groups to take action on tar­gets in Copen­hagen, and abroad. In the Morn­ing of Decem­ber 13th we will also shut down the har­bour of Copen­hagen through a mass action block­ade. The har­bour is a key sym­bol of the glob­al free-mar­ket econ­o­my. Here becomes vis­i­ble what is usu­al­ly hid­den: eco­log­i­cal dete­ri­o­ra­tion, eco­nom­ic and social exploita­tion, and utter injus­tice.

Since the dawn of colo­nial­ism the glob­al ship­ping indus­try has been char­ac­ter­ized by vio­lence. What was once gold pil­laged from the Incas is these days prof­it based on cheap resources and cheap labour — usu­al­ly trans­port­ed by ships. Today, con­tain­er ship­ping is one of the foun­da­tions of cap­i­tal­ism. There are hard­ly any reg­u­la­tions: fuel is not taxed, emis­sions are not sub­ject to con­trol and bor­ders are seem­ing­ly non-exis­tent for con­tain­er ships. At the same time, the nev­er end­ing need for more cheap goods is almost lim­it­less. The ‘free’ glob­al flow of goods con­tin­ues to grow — with ben­e­fits for only the few.

But where­as these flows of goods can enter the EU/ rich world freely, humans can­not. As soon as peo­ple do not have the right pass­port or enough mon­ey when enter­ing rich coun­tries, they are put in pris­ons, deport­ed and deprived of the most basic human rights. And the mil­i­tari­sa­tion of the seas is not just hap­pen­ing around the EU bor­ders. It is also used to pro­tect inter­na­tion­al ship­ping, like in Soma­lia where inter­na­tion­al fish­ing fleets have robbed Soma­li fish­er­men of the fun­da­men­tal ele­ments of their exis­tence.

Final­ly, inter­na­tion­al ship­ping is more than just a method of trans­port for the glob­al econ­o­my. It is in itself a pri­ma­ry cause of cli­mate change. Approx­i­mate­ly 5% of Glob­al Green­house Emis­sions are pro­duced by the ship­ping indus­try. Con­tain­er ship fuel is basi­cal­ly tox­ic waste left over from petrol pro­duc­tion, con­tain­ing high amounts of sul­phur and mer­cury. And like inter­na­tion­al flights, nobody is respon­si­ble for ship­ping indus­try emis­sions under the Kyoto Pro­to­col.

Cli­mate jus­tice and real social change will not come from above. Effec­tive change has to come from every­one — affect­ed, respon­si­ble, and observ­er. True change has to be orga­nized and real­ized by peo­ple all over the world — all peo­ple on the streets and in the fields. We say no to the pow­er of gov­ern­ments, com­pa­nies and so-called non-gov­ern­ment organ­i­sa­tions which are only inter­est­ed in main­tain­ing their pow­er, influ­ence and flows of cap­i­tal.

We will try to stop this mad­ness for a day. Fight­ing for cli­mate jus­tice means chang­ing our eco­nom­ic sys­tem and this needs to hap­pen here in the rich glob­al north, which reaps the most ben­e­fits from the dis­as­ter. For the free flow of peo­ple and ideas, instead of flows of goods to ben­e­fit the few.

Con­tact htp@riseup.net to get involved with plan­ning the action, or come to one of our next meet­ings: Berlin Octo­ber 3–4 & Copen­hagen Octo­ber 18.

‘Ratcliffe 114’ Protestors at Court — Callout for support — updated

The Rat­cliffe pro­tes­tors being per­se­cut­ed for ‘con­spir­a­cy’ are at court next week — show some sup­port!

There are 3 groups appear­ing in Not­ting­ham Mags on the 12th 13th and 14th — they need our sup­port to show we will not be intim­i­dat­ed.

Sol­i­dar­i­ty — No con­spir­a­cy!

Rat­cliffe 114 — one more charged, now 25

The Guardian men­tions the M1 case:

The Rat­cliffe pro­tes­tors being per­se­cut­ed for ‘con­spir­a­cy’ are at court next week — show some sup­port!

There are 3 groups appear­ing in Not­ting­ham Mags on the 12th 13th and 14th — they need our sup­port to show we will not be intim­i­dat­ed.

Sol­i­dar­i­ty — No con­spir­a­cy!

Rat­cliffe 114 — one more charged, now 25

The Guardian men­tions the M1 case:

“Some­times these cas­es – such as the con­spir­a­cy to com­mit pub­lic nui­sance charge brought against mem­bers of the “No M1 Widen­ing” cam­paign in 2007 – are just thrown out by the judges. But some­times, as in the con­spir­a­cy cas­es against ani­mal rights activists and anti-arms man­u­fac­tur­ing cam­paigns, they are treat­ed extreme­ly seri­ous­ly. The impact on the lives of the accused is enor­mous, because under the terms of a con­spir­a­cy charge, you can be for­bid­den to talk to any­one involved, which can involve house­mates, fam­i­ly, friends. Your pos­ses­sions can be seized (Julie White of the M1 cam­paign had her door bro­ken down by police, her com­put­er seized and held for a year, and even items tak­en off her wash­ing line) and held on remand for the dura­tion of the tri­al.”

“if the court allows the case and con­vic­tions fol­low, it has cat­a­stroph­ic impli­ca­tions. Any activist involved with plan­ning any kind of ille­gal direct action could be charged with con­spir­a­cy to com­mit aggra­vat­ed tres­pass.

As White says: “You could pick up any­one you want­ed. We’re get­ting into thought crimes now.” Is that what the police are after?”

Disrupting E.ON at London City University undergraduate fair + Kingsnorth shelved, or not? (+ Tilbury)

7th Octo­ber 2009

7th Octo­ber 2009
E.ON, were hold­ing a talk at the stu­dent recruit­ment fair yes­ter­day. The com­pa­ny is respon­si­ble for the planned new coal pow­er sta­tions at Kingsnorth, which com­bined would pro­duce the same car­bon emis­sions as Ghana. With the report by the Glob­al and Human­i­tar­i­an forum stat­ing that three hun­dred thou­sand peo­ple are already dying already each year due to cli­mate change, it isn’t a viable option.

The group of activists stormed the talks yes­ter­day by E.ON, get­ting past the secu­ri­ty guards who were hold­ing a pret­ty tight pres­ence out­side the doors, quite pos­si­bly due to the con­tin­ued protests against E.ON at stu­dent fairs last year http://leaveitintheground.org.uk/?p=185 .

While three burly guys jumped on one activist, the oth­ers hand­ed out fly­ers to the bemused stu­dents wok­en up from the cor­po­rate Pow­er­Point slum­ber. An activist took to the podi­um to tell the audi­ence what E.ON are real­ly about. Claim­ing them­selves as a Green Ener­gy Com­pa­ny while 95% of their invest­ment is into non renew­able ener­gies is a clear sign of green­wash­ing and the cor­po­rate bull­shit that stu­dents have to lis­ten to.

—–

Kingsnorth pow­er sta­tion plans axed — Local Cam­paign­ers Respond

8.10.2009
The tim­ing couldn’t be bet­ter, Kingsnorth Cli­mate Action Med­way (KCAM) and WDM host­ed a debate tonight to dis­cuss the future of coal in Med­way. The meet­ing cul­mi­nat­ed in the announce­ment that E.on have essen­tial­ly pulled out of build­ing a new coal fired pow­er sta­tion at Kingsnorth.

Local cam­paign­er Trish Marchant said “Its fan­tas­tic news for us, but it’s a small vic­to­ry. We in Med­way will be send­ing our sup­port to the next local group who take on the fight” In a heavy blow to the government’s plans to pro­mote ener­gy from coal, the Ger­man com­pa­ny have said they will not pur­sue the new plant in the UK until at least 2012.

Jane Har­ris, a local KCAM cam­paign­er said “This is a step in the right direc­tion, it shows that peo­ple real­ly do have the pow­er to chal­lenge the gov­ern­ment and cor­po­ra­tions. How­ev­er, accord­ing to UN fig­ures cli­mate change is cur­rent­ly respon­si­ble for 300,000 deaths per year. We need to seri­ous­ly rethink any plans to use new coal, we need to be focus­ing on renew­able green ener­gy”.

Should the project have gone ahead, the coal units would have been be the first to be built for more than 20 years.

Dave David­son, a res­i­dent of the penin­su­la said “I’m cau­tious about Eons real agen­da. Are they try­ing to apply pres­sure to Ed Mil­liband to make a deci­sion or are we real­ly see­ing the change we have been work­ing for. I hope for the future of our plan­et that it’s the lat­ter.”

Jill Osborne of Tip­ping Point said “Its been amaz­ing work­ing along­side such com­mit­ted locals. The peo­ple of Med­way cer­tain­ly know how to mount a resis­tance. This vic­to­ry will be a huge inspi­ra­tion to cli­mate change cam­paign­ers across the world.”

http://kcam.co.cc

- Cli­mate Camp responds

Wednes­day, 7 Octo­ber 2009: Cli­mate activists cel­e­brat­ed vic­to­ry against car­bon inten­sive coal pow­er last night, as ener­gy com­pa­ny E.ON announced they were indef­i­nite­ly delay­ing build­ing a new pow­er sta­tion in Kent. The Camp for Cli­mate Action tar­get­ed the Kingsnorth site in August 2008 1 as coal is one of the most envi­ron­men­tal­ly destruc­tive ways of gen­er­at­ing electricity.2

E.ON’s anounce­ment comes as hun­dreds of activists pre­pare for the Great Cli­mate Swoop on 17th Octo­ber, when they plan to take con­trol of Rat­cliffe-on-Soar3, anoth­er coal-fired pow­er plant oper­at­ed by E.ON 4. Activists will be co-ordi­nat­ing the protests through text mes­sages and twit­ter, which were also used to plan the G20 protests.

Activist Den­nis Stevens said: “This is an amaz­ing vic­to­ry which shows how ordi­nary peo­ple can take back the pow­er from cor­po­ra­tions and gov­ern­ment which do not val­ue peo­ple and the envi­ron­ment. We need a social move­ment to devel­op com­mu­ni­ty con­trol of our ener­gy sup­ply and our soci­ety; not our cur­rent sys­tem which ignores the needs of peo­ple and the cli­mate.”

Resis­tance by Cli­mate Camp activists to the Kingsnorth plan has been wide­spread, includ­ing the Tip­ping Point shop in near­by Gilling­ham which works with­in the local com­mu­ni­ty to expose E.ON’s green­wash, and actions tar­get­ing E.ON’s PR firm Edel­man and con­struc­tion firms bid­ding for the Kingsnorth con­tract. Cli­mate Camp activists have also dumped coal at E.ON stu­dent recruit­ment events, giv­en out leaflets at FA Cup foot­ball match­es spon­sored by E.ON, and even dis­rupt­ed a cli­mate change con­fer­ence spon­sored by the ener­gy giant itself.5

Emma Jack­son added: “E.ON are final­ly recog­nis­ing that the days of build­ing new coal-fired pow­er sta­tions are over. Now we have to start shut­ting down exist­ing pow­er sta­tions, and that’s why we’re going to Rat­cliffe-on-Soar next week. And if E.ON try and bring back their plans for Kingsnorth then we’ll be back there too”.

More infor­ma­tion on the Great Cli­mate Swoop at Rat­cliffe on Soar is avail­able at thegreatclimateswoop.org

Ends.

NOTES FOR EDITORS

1 Kingsnorth would have been the first coal-fired pow­er sta­tion in the UK for more than 30 years.

2 If built, Kingsnorth will emit between 6 and 8 mil­lion tons of CO2 every year. If all the coal plants pro­posed for Britain are built, an extra 50 mil­lion tonnes of car­bon diox­ide a year would be pumped into the atmos­phere, almost a tenth of the UK’s cur­rent total emis­sions.

3 Rat­cliffe-on-Soar is the UK’s third most pol­lut­ing pow­er sta­tion and emits more CO2 each year than Cos­ta Rica.

4 climatecamp.org.uk/actions/climate-swoop-2009

5 leaveitintheground.org.uk/?p=185

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Email: press@climatecamp.org.uk

http://tippingpoint.co.cc

Or is it real­ly a suc­cess?

Head­lines would sug­gest a major ground break­ing vic­to­ry for the envi­ro­men­tal move­ment and the cam­paign against new coal with the announce­ment by Eon how­ev­er the Tip­ping Point blog sug­gests the news might not be so sig­nif­i­cant (see http://climateshop.wordpress.com/2009/10/08/news-sinking-in/). Eon has since con­firmed that it remains in the gov­ern­ments com­pe­ti­tion to build a demon­stra­tion car­bon cap­ture and stor­age facil­i­ty attached to a coal-fired pow­er plant by 2014 and since the win­ner is unlike­ly to be announced untill 2011 how can Eons annouce­ment be tak­en as a vic­to­ry?

All Eon are say­ing is that they a like­ly to delay com­mit­ing cash to build the new plant for the next two or three year so that cer­tain­ly does not trans­late as shelv­ing the project, not when they are still seek­ing the bil­lion pound gift from Ed Miliband to tri­al the CCS.

What does this mean for coal in the UK?

It is the sus­pen­sion of the key project that has so far defined the bat­tle over new coal in the UK. It is there­fore high­ly sig­nif­i­cant, but not a fatal blow. The invest­ment freeze could be un-frozen with the right lev­el of sub­sidy, and has no direct impact on the oth­er plants being con­sid­ered for CCS demon­stra­tion. There is now a new threat emerg­ing at Hunter­ston in Scot­land, from a con­sor­tium includ­ing RWE and Dong ener­gy (a Dan­ish util­i­ty) for a plant iden­ti­cal to Kingsnorth, and they are claim­ing they will build with or with­out Gov­ern­ment assis­tance.

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Health warn­ing — report from main­stream news­pa­per, hence “ecofriend­ly”!!!

POWER FIRM HALTS PLANS FOR NEW GREEN STATION 12th Novem­ber 2009.

PLANS to build a new, ecofriend­ly pow­er sta­tion in South Essex have been put on hold.

The exist­ing pow­er coal­fired pow­er sta­tion at Tilbury is due to be decom­mis­sioned in 2014,possibly even in 2013.It had been expect­ed that its oper­a­tors, npow­er, would replace it with a new pow­er sta­tion, but on Mon­day they announced they would­n’t now be mak­ing an appli­ca­tion to build a new super­crit­i­cal coal-fired pow­er sta­tion at the site.

There has been a pow­er sta­tion at Tilbury since 1956, with oil-fired Tilbury ‘A’ com­ing online to the nation­al grid a year later.Coal-fired Tilbury ‘B’ fol­lowed in 1967 and has oper­at­ed, with sig­nif­i­cant effi­cien­cy upgrades since then. The orig­i­nal sta­tion was moth­balled in 1981 and even­tu­al­ly demol­ished in 1999, allow­ing the cre­ation of the sta­tion’s inno­v­a­tive envi­ron­men­tal cen­tre.

How­ev­er, a Euro­pean direc­tive which came into force on 1 Jan­u­ary, 2008 gave the pow­er sta­tion just 20,000 hours of oper­at­ing life before it has to be replaced by a more envi­ron­men­tal­ly-friend­ly, car­bon effi­cient sys­tem (see fur­ther below for data *1* ). Nigel Staves, Tilbury Pow­er Sta­tion man­ag­er, esti­mates that timescale will run out as ear­ly as 2013. He says: “Giv­en the cur­rent mar­ket, we are unable to make an eco­nom­ic case for this new coal pow­er sta­tion. “We are also con­sid­er­ing the out­come of the Gov­ern­men­t’s pol­i­cy review on the con­di­tions for new coal sta­tions. For this rea­son, our plans for Tilbury are now on hold. “However,we firm­ly believe new, more effi­cient, coal-fired gen­er­a­tion should ulti­mate­ly have a role to play in a low ‑car­bon econ­o­my along­side gas, nuclear pow­er and increas­ing­ly renew­able ener­gy sources. “We con­tin­ue to see the Tilbury site as an impor­tant one, both to RWE npow­er and in terms of the future of pow­er gen­er­a­tion in the UK. “Giv­en the exist­ing ener­gy infra­struc­ture and prox­im­i­ty to areas of high demand for elec­tric­i­ty, it is an obvi­ous choice for pow­er gen­er­a­tion. “We are now review­ing poten­tial options.”

RWE npow­er said this meant it would not be pro­gress­ing with its bid for Gov­ern­ment funds to devel­op a car­bon diox­ide cap­ture demon­stra­tion plant at a new Tilbury sta­tion, but it remained inter­est­ed in oth­er oppor­tu­ni­ties to devel­op the tech­nol­o­gy.