Climate campaigners target coal power construction firm — again!

For the sec­ond time this month, pro­test­ers have focused on major build­ing con­trac­tor BAM Nut­tall due to its poten­tial role in build­ing the con­tro­ver­sial Kingsnorth coal pow­er sta­tion. Pro­test­ers have climbed the company’s flag­pole and raised a flag read­ing “no new coal”. Peo­ple have attempt­ed to enter the build­ing, ask­ing to speak to Chief Exec­u­tive Mar­tin J.

For the sec­ond time this month, pro­test­ers have focused on major build­ing con­trac­tor BAM Nut­tall due to its poten­tial role in build­ing the con­tro­ver­sial Kingsnorth coal pow­er sta­tion. Pro­test­ers have climbed the company’s flag­pole and raised a flag read­ing “no new coal”. Peo­ple have attempt­ed to enter the build­ing, ask­ing to speak to Chief Exec­u­tive Mar­tin J. Rogers in order to give him a let­ter about the dis­as­trous impli­ca­tions of build­ing more coal-fired pow­er sta­tions.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

29 June 2009, 11:30

For more infor­ma­tion, inter­views and pho­tographs [1] con­tact Thames Val­ley Cli­mate Action on 07912 614 541 or oxford@climatecamp.org.uk

CLIMATE CAMPAIGNERS TARGET COAL POWER CONSTRUCTION FIRM

Pro­test­ers focus on major build­ing con­trac­tor BAM Nut­tall due to poten­tial role in con­tro­ver­sial Kingsnorth coal pow­er sta­tion

[Pho­to and film­ing oppor­tu­ni­ty at: BAM Nut­tall Head Office, St. James House, Knoll Road, Cam­ber­ly, Sur­rey, GU15 3XW]

For the sec­ond time this month, cam­paign­ers have tar­get­ed offices of Sur­rey-based build­ing firm BAM Nut­tall. Pro­test­ers have climbed the company’s flag­pole and raised a flag read­ing “no new coal”. Sev­en peo­ple attempt­ed to enter the build­ing, ask­ing to speak to Chief Exec­u­tive Mar­tin J. Rogers in order to give him a let­ter about the dis­as­trous impli­ca­tions of build­ing more coal-fired pow­er sta­tions.

The cam­paign­ers from Thames Val­ley Cli­mate Action [2], are tar­get­ing BAM because the com­pa­ny is bid­ding for the con­tract to build a new coal pow­er sta­tion at Kingsnorth in Kent, for the ener­gy giant E.ON [3]. This would be the first new UK coal pow­er sta­tion for 30 years, and would pro­duce about 7 mil­lions tonnes of CO2 per year, equiv­a­lent to the entire emis­sions of a coun­try like Ghana [4]. Accord­ing to a new report from Kofi Annan’s Glob­al Human­i­tar­i­an Forum, cli­mate change is already killing 300,000 peo­ple per year, and will get much worse unless we urgent­ly reduce our CO2 emis­sions [5].

One of the pro­test­ers, Mike Hold­man, said: “We are here for the sec­ond time this month to demand that BAM Nut­tall pulls out of build­ing coal pow­er sta­tions. While we praise BAM’s intro­duc­tion of low ener­gy light­ing and improved heat­ing con­trols, these ini­tia­tives are a drop in the ocean com­pared with the emis­sions the firm will cause by build­ing new coal pow­er sta­tions.”

The Gov­ern­ment and E.ON are claim­ing that a new Kingsnorth pow­er sta­tion would even­tu­al­ly include “car­bon cap­ture and stor­age” (CCS) tech­nol­o­gy, to catch 25% of its emis­sions and store them under­ground [6]. How­ev­er, the cam­paign­ers inside BAM Nut­tall point out that this is unproven tech­nol­o­gy that is still being test­ed, and won’t be avail­able until at least 2020 [7]. Cli­mate sci­en­tists say we need to make sharp car­bon cuts long before that date [8]. Even if CCS is one day installed, and works as planned, the plant would still pro­duce more CO2 than a gas pow­er sta­tion [9].

The Government’s oth­er favoured jus­ti­fi­ca­tion for build­ing new coal pow­er stations—that the emis­sions would be includ­ed in the EU’s “car­bon trad­ing” scheme—has been wide­ly and heav­i­ly crit­i­cized. Crit­ics say that this scheme is a com­plex and unwork­able dis­trac­tion from the real cli­mate change solu­tions, that it isn’t reduc­ing emis­sions, and it essen­tial­ly hands con­trol of the cli­mate over to the same bankers, bro­kers and pri­vate traders respon­si­ble for the glob­al finan­cial crash [11].

Last week NASA’s top cli­mate sci­en­tist, James Hansen, was arrest­ed for tak­ing action against new coal. Hansen said, “It seems to me that young peo­ple, espe­cial­ly, should be doing what­ev­er is nec­es­sary to block con­struc­tion of dirty coal-fired pow­er plants.” Even Al Gore said in 2007, “I can’t under­stand why there aren’t rings of young peo­ple block­ing bull­doz­ers and pre­vent­ing them from con­struct­ing coal-fired pow­er sta­tions.” One of today’s pro­test­ers, Anna Samuels, said: “You have a top politi­cian and a top sci­en­tist call­ing for direct action on coal, as we are doing here today. Gore and Hansen must recog­nise that non-vio­lent direct action has been an impor­tant cat­a­lyst in near­ly every major social change move­ment in his­to­ry, from woman’s suf­frage to civ­il rights. We are here today to help cat­alyze the much-need­ed shift from coal to a low-car­bon econ­o­my.”

Louise Smith said: “We need to think about the long-term pic­ture. The Stern Review has shown that coal is not a cost-effec­tive ener­gy source when you fac­tor in the dam­ages that it will cause through future cli­mate change. Cli­mate sci­en­tists around the world, from Oxford University’s Myles Allen to NASA’s James Hansen, are denounc­ing coal. We ask BAM Nut­tall to do the same, and stop build­ing new coal pow­er sta­tions.”

—ENDS—

Notes to Edi­tors:

[1] Pho­tographs of our protest at BAM ear­li­er this month are avail­able at http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/regions/oxford/2009/06/431779.html
[2] TVCA is part of the Camp for Cli­mate Action net­work, which set up a week-long protest camp at Kingsnorth in August 2008—see www.climatecamp.org.uk. Today’s action is part of a nation­al cam­paign, sup­port­ed by the Camp for Cli­mate Action, called the E.ON Face Off—see www.e‑onf-off.org.uk. Pre­vi­ous actions have includ­ed the occu­pa­tion of E.ON’s UK head office by pro­test­ers dressed as San­ta Claus, and actions at E.ON stalls at Uni­ver­si­ty recruit­ment events, which led to the com­pa­ny aban­don­ing its grad­u­ate recruit­ment dri­ve.
[3] BAM Nut­tall is a con­struc­tion and civ­il engi­neer­ing firm owned by the Roy­al BAM Group
[4] Car­bon Diox­ide Infor­ma­tion Analy­sis Cen­tre: http://cdiac.ornl.gov/
[5] Glob­al Human­i­tar­i­an Forum: http://ghf-geneva.org/
[6] http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8014295.stm
[7] http://www.guardian.co.uk/environmental/georgemonbiot/2009/apr/23/carbon-capture-and-storage-coal
[8] http://www.tyndall.ac.uk/publications/briefing_notes/bn17.pdf
[9] Gen­er­at­ing elec­tric­i­ty from coal pro­duces about twice as much CO2 per KWh than gen­er­a­tion from gas. There­fore a 25%reduction would leave coal about 1.5 times as pol­lut­ing as gas.
[10] See for exam­ple: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article5257602.ece, http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20227046.200-carbon-trading-wont-stop-climate-change.html and http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/cif-green/2009/may/28/carbon-trading
[11] http://carbontradewatch.org

11:30
UPDATE: Five pro­test­ers entered the build­ing and were lat­er eject­ed. They are now being searched under Sec­tion 1 of the 2003 Crim­i­nal Jus­tice Act. No arrests thus far.

Thames Val­ley Cli­mate Action
oxford@climatecamp.org.uk
http://www.climatecamp.org.uk

Rossport: A Tripod, A Lock-On And A Compound Infiltration

Sun­day June 28th saw the most intense burst of direct action against Shell in Erris so far in this phase of the cam­paign to thwart the Great Gas Rob­bery and the destruc­tion of Erris along with its com­mu­ni­ty.

Rossport tripod in roadSun­day June 28th saw the most intense burst of direct action against Shell in Erris so far in this phase of the cam­paign to thwart the Great Gas Rob­bery and the destruc­tion of Erris along with its com­mu­ni­ty. A tri­pod on a road bridge near McGrath’s Bar held up vital repair gear for the pipeline winch­ing oper­a­tion for over four hours. This was fol­lowed up by a five-per­son lock-on on the same road a bit near­er the Shell com­pound. Togeth­er, they delayed winch­ing oper­a­tions for twelve hours, and there were nine arrests in all. Mean­while, three Sol­i­dar­i­ty Campers man­aged to sneak into the Shell com­pound at Glen­gad and get out with­out being arrest­ed.

At about two o’clock Sun­day lunchtime a Ross­port Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp action team erect­ed a tri­pod on the road to Shel­l’s Glen­gad com­pound, upon a bridge near McGrath’s Bar in Pul­lath­omas. This action was exe­cut­ed on foot of infor­ma­tion received that the winch gear in Shel­l’s com­pound had bro­ken down and need­ed replace­ment parts and extra gear, all of which was to arrive on a truck con­voy trav­el­ling the Pul­lath­omas road to Glen­gad. The first Gar­da car on the scene revved up attempt­ed to ram the tri­pod, and this reck­less endan­ger­ment of the tri­pod occu­pi­er was pre­vent­ed only by a brave camper stand­ing before the appa­ra­tus and com­pelling the Gar­da car to stop. The car touched against the shins of the camper as it stopped, once again illus­trat­ing the mad­ness of a mur­der-mind­ed police force drunk on impuni­ty.

Hav­ing cau­tioned the tri­pod occu­pi­er under the pub­lic order act, the Gar­dai then went on to declare an ‘exclu­sion zone’ and then rough­ly pushed out his com­pan­ions off the road under threat of arrest. They found refuge from Gar­da harass­ment in an adja­cent field, and from there kept vig­il over their col­league, who was being con­tin­u­al­ly endan­gered by igno­rant med­dling by the Gar­dai on the scene with the tri­pod appa­ra­tus. Local peo­ple and campers began to arrive to sup­port the tri­pod occu­pi­er, get­ting as close to him as they could in the fields at either side of the road.

One Gar­da com­mit­ted an unpro­voked assault on a Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camper on the road about 100m away from the tri­pod, trip­ping him, gash­ing his hand bad­ly and also leav­ing him with a bad chest injury. Gar­dai began attempt­ing to arrest any­one who entered the road any­where near the tri­pod, arrest­ing three peo­ple with­out giv­ing them any chance to leave vol­un­tar­i­ly. One of the arrestees was act­ing as a recorder of inci­dents; his log book was seized by the cops in anoth­er act of cyn­i­cal impuni­ty. The arrests were con­duct­ed with no lit­tle vio­lence on the part of the Gar­dai.

In a bizarre inter­lude dur­ing this action, a table and desk was pro­duced from a horse­box-type trail­er the Gar­dai brought to the scene, and four cops in blue hard-hats pro­ceed­ed to fill in forms on the table. Screens were then erect­ed around the tri­pod area in a futile attempt to pre­vent pho­tograph­ing or film­ing of Gar­da activ­i­ty. The Gar­dai present attempt­ed to ques­tion the tri­pod occu­pi­er as if he were already arrest­ed and in cus­tody in a Gar­da sta­tion, which struck many wit­ness­es as an abuse of pro­ce­dure.

An hour-and-a-half after the tri­pod was erect­ed, a truck from AGS Scaf­fold­ing Ltd. from Cross­moli­na arrived at the McGrath’s Bar side of the tri­pod. Not coin­ci­den­tal­ly, the AGS stands for Antho­ny Gill Scaf­fold­ing, and Antho­ny Gill is the broth­er of Gar­da Sgt James Gill, an ever-present men­ace to the cit­i­zens of Erris. Fur­ther­more, from the nature of the equip­ment the scaf­fold­ers brought with them and the man­ner in which the scaf­fold­ers worked with the cops, it can be rea­son­ably sus­pect­ed that this com­pa­ny’s per­son­nel have trained along­side Gar­dai for this kind of ‘work’.

After two hours or so of plat­form build­ing by the scaf­fold­ers two Gar­da detec­tives climbed up and began to remove the tri­pod occu­pi­er. The man­ner in which they effect­ed the arrest was cal­cu­lat­ed to inflict injury and dis­played a lev­el of petu­lant spite­ful­ness that the peo­ple of Kil­com­mon and sur­round­ing parish­es have endured for far too long. The tri­pod suc­cess­ful­ly blocked the road for near­ly four hours and the dis­man­tling of the scaf­fold­ing plat­form must have added anoth­er 90 min­utes of road block­age to this.

With­in an hour of the tri­pod being dis­man­tled and before the truck con­voy could get any far­ther, a lock-on team from the Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp got into posi­tion on the road only 300m or so from the gates of the Shell com­pound. Even though it was rain­ing steadi­ly in the evening gloom, the Gar­dai sup­plied only an insuf­fi­cient quan­ti­ty of cov­er for the pro­tes­tors, who were soaked to the skin with­in min­utes of lock­ing-on. Sup­port­ers from the camp and the local area began to gath­er at the site, and then about an hour into the action, the num­ber of Gar­dai began increas­ing. The Gar­dai used their num­bers to begin pro­gres­sive­ly push­ing peo­ple back using threats of arrest under the pub­lic order act, and once again erect­ed screens and tents to block the view of peo­ple sup­port­ing the lock-on team, and to frus­trate film­ing and pho­tograph­ing of their actions.

The Gar­dai assent­ed to allow­ing an observ­er to remain with the lock-on team, but then cyn­i­cal­ly removed her under the pre­tence of arrest­ing her for the ‘crime’ of hav­ing a mobile phone passed to her from an out­side sup­port­er. She was searched (no doubt ille­gal­ly), dragged out and put into a Gar­da van for almost a quar­ter of an hour, and was then released from Gar­da cap­tiv­i­ty. The cops then pro­ceed­ed to begin cut­ting out the lock-on team.

The lock-on was dis­as­sem­bled final­ly only at around a quar­ter to two on Mon­day morn­ing. By this time, the two actions on the road had delayed Shell by a full twelve hours. It had also spoiled the plans and pricked the arro­gance of Shel­l’s cops, who were seri­al­ly out­wit­ted by brave and com­mit­ted Shell to Sea cam­paign­ers. The tri­pod action arrestees and two of the five lock-on arrestees were brought to Bal­li­na Gar­da sta­tion, and the oth­er three lock-on arrestees were brought to Castle­bar Gar­da sta­tion. At the time of writ­ing the four tri­pod arrestees have been remand­ed in Gar­da cus­tody and will be up in West­port dis­trict court lat­er today. It is not yet known whether the oth­er five have been remand­ed or released.

Mean­while on Sun­day evening as the lock-on action was hap­pen­ing, three Sol­i­dar­i­ty Campers drove into the Shell com­pound when the met­al front gates were opened for oth­er traf­fic, util­is­ing the tech­nique of ‘social cam­ou­flage’ to seize the oppor­tu­ni­ty pre­sent­ed. The campers got to the sec­ond inter­nal set of gates and were about to have them opened for them when they were recog­nised. Gar­dai threat­ened to tow the car out, but even­tu­al­ly the campers were allowed to dri­ve out and were not arrest­ed. With the kayak team mak­ing the Soli­taire run away on Thurs­day evening and now this pen­e­tra­tion of the Glen­gad Shell com­pound, not only are the mer­ce­nary ‘secu­ri­ty firm’ IRMS fas­cist scum, they are crap fas­cist scum too!

Maya Villagers Burn Mine Equipment

A group of Mayan Mam vil­lagers torched the equip­ment of a com­pa­ny attempt­ing to set up a mine on their land with­out per­mis­sion on June 12.

A group of Mayan Mam vil­lagers torched the equip­ment of a com­pa­ny attempt­ing to set up a mine on their land with­out per­mis­sion on June 12. Explo­rado­ra de Guatemala, a sub­sidiary of the Cana­di­an com­pa­ny Gold­corp, had been pres­sur­ing 20 fam­i­lies in the San Miguel Ixz­tahua­can munic­i­pal­i­ty to sell their land, but the vil­lagers had con­sis­tent­ly refused. When the com­pa­ny began mov­ing min­ing equip­ment onto their land any­way, the vil­lagers demand­ed its removal.

The com­pa­ny promised to remove all equip­ment by June 10, then failed to do so. It promised again to remove the equip­ment by June 12, even as it request­ed police and army assis­tance — receiv­ing 8 police units (2 of them anti-riot) and 4 vehi­cles full of sol­diers.

On June 12, see­ing that the com­pa­ny was not going to remove the equip­ment, vil­lagers set fire to an explo­ration drill rig and pick­up truck, while police and sol­diers stood by and watched.

Unfor­tu­nate­ly, due to com­pa­ny pres­sure, the police filed charges against 7 vil­lagers for the action on June 19.

Mayo update — resisting Shell on Wednesday & Thursday

25.6.09
Soli­taire on the horizon,more arrests — the resis­tance con­tin­ues — Sol­i­dar­i­ty!

Shell2Sea David vs Goliath25.6.09
Soli­taire on the horizon,more arrests — the resis­tance con­tin­ues — Sol­i­dar­i­ty!

The Soli­taire, the huge pipe lay­ing ship, that will lay the pipeline in Broad­haven Bay has arrived. If you were think­ing of com­ing to Ross­port this sum­mer now is the time. Resis­tance con­tin­ues whilst 200 Gar­dai and the Irish Navy are draft­ed in to facil­i­tate Shel­l’s project.

As the Soli­taires arrival looms large, the state ups the pres­sure with more friv­o­lous arrests.

At approx­i­mate­ly 5.30pm on Wednes­day, two swim­mers were arrest­ed in Broad­haven Bay by the joint Gar­daí and Naval force, for oppos­ing Shel­l’s Cor­rib Gas Project. Both were quite a dis­tance out­side of Shel­l’s so-called ‘exclu­sion zone’ in the Bay when they were arrest­ed by Gar­dai jump­ing towards them from RIBs (Rigid Inflat­able Boats). The protest was against prepara­to­ry cable work being done before the arrival of the Soli­taire. Nei­ther pro­test­er was close to any machin­ery, or stop­ping any work from tak­ing place. This brings to 22 the num­ber of peo­ple arrest­ed this month for oppos­ing Shell.

This forms part of a larg­er pat­tern of arbi­trary arrest, through which Gar­dai are seek­ing to repress peace­ful protest against Shel­l’s dis­as­trous Cor­rib Gas Project. Recent weeks have seen dra­con­ian attempts to remand first-time offend­ers to cus­tody for rel­a­tive­ly minor offences, along with very high bail mon­ey being demand­ed for pro­test­ers. The attempt­ed crim­i­nal­i­sa­tion of cam­paign­ers rais­es very seri­ous ques­tions about civ­il lib­er­ties and the infring­ing on the right to protest.

Shell to Sea spokesper­son Mau­ra Har­ring­ton said: “The hun­dreds of Gar­dai and Naval per­son­nel draft­ed into the area in the last 48 hours shows just how far the gov­ern­ment will go to facil­i­tate Shell, despite the fact that this project is com­plete­ly against the inter­ests of the peo­ple of this coun­try. These lat­est arrests are mere­ly the Gar­daí and Navy try­ing to jus­ti­fy the immense and total­ly dis­pro­por­tion­ate force that has been sent down by the State to force this project through”

LE Emer is cur­rent­ly sta­tioned in Broad­haven Bay and Navy RIBs crewed by Gar­daí and Navy per­son­nel are cur­rent­ly being used against pro­tes­tors.

.…

The 24th of June began with an oppres­sive Gar­da pres­ence in the Glen­gad area and end­ed with two swim­mers from the camp being arrest­ed in Broad­haven Bay this evening. Shel­l’s con­tract­ed pipe-lay­ing ship the Soli­taire began its jour­ney to Glen­gad this after­noon and is expect­ed to be in the bay by morn­ing.

At lunchtime two squadrons of kayak­ers set out into Broad­haven bay as a prac­tise run for actions when the Solitare arrives. Kayak­ers were con­front­ed by a heavy Gar­da and navy pres­ence sup­port­ed by Shell secu­ri­ty in rigid inflat­able boats (ribs). Two kayak­ers were rough­ly han­dled, being dragged at speed by Gar­da ribs while Gar­dai hung on to their craft. All kayak­ers man­aged to return safe­ly to the Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp. At the same time the Irish naval ves­sel the LE Emer entered Broad­haven Bay, cir­cled the bay and dropped anchor near Baly­glass pier. This war­ship remains at anchor tonight in the bay.

In prepa­ra­tion for attach­ing the pulling cable to the Solitare one of Shel­l’s tug boats drew a small­er cable from the Glen­gad com­pound to one of the dredg­ing plat­forms in the bay at aprox­i­mate­ly 5:30pm. Two swim­mers set out to inves­ti­gage what was hap­pen­ing, sup­port­ed by two kayak­ers. They were imme­di­ate­ly met by Gar­dai, navy per­son­nel and Shell secu­ri­ty in a total of 18 ribs. Even though the swim­mers did not enter the exclu­sion area they were sur­round­ed by ribs and arrest­ed at about 6 pm. The swim­mers were put at some dan­ger dur­ing the arrests by Gar­dai because of the lack of pro­peller guards on the ribs while they sur­round­ed the swim­mers. They also denied the swim­mers the pos­si­bil­i­ty of swim­ming back to shore by sur­round­ing them with ribs before they arrest­ed them. They were then tak­en to the Shell Glen­gad com­pound where they were held by Gar­dai for over 2 hours before being tak­en to Bal­li­na Gar­da sta­tion for pro­cess­ing. One of the arrestees has since returned to the Sol­i­dar­i­ty camp but the oth­er per­son is being detained in a care home in Gal­way because they are 2 months short of their 18th birth­day.

In a fur­ther inci­dent lat­er on Gar­da park­ing cones were removed by locals and campers after it was dis­cov­ered that Gar­dai had no legal basis for putting them there. Soon after, two van loads of Gar­dai arrived at the road out­side the Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp, claim­ing that campers and locals were block­ing the road. A stand-off devel­oped which last­ed for over a half an hour. Dur­ing this inci­dent sev­er­al local peo­ple iden­ti­fied a man dri­ving a four wheel dri­ve jeep on the road as the dri­ver of the dig­ger involved in the incin­dent at Pul­lath­omas pier on the 11th of June, 2007; this was when numer­ous peo­ple were injured after a dig­ger was dri­ven through a crowd of local pro­tes­tors. This was brought to the atten­tion of the Gar­dai present but they chose to ignore this com­plaint, instead claim­ing that the assem­bled locals and campers were block­ing the road.

There has been a heavy Gar­dai pres­ence in the area through­out the area, includ­ing a pub­lic order unit sta­tioned inside the Shell Glen­gad com­pound. Gar­dai have also been stop­ping traf­ic on the roads around Glen­gad check­ing for insur­ance, tax, etc. A mys­te­ri­ous white van with Mayo plates has been parked on the road­side dur­ing the day­time, adja­cent to the Ross­port Sol­i­dar­i­ty camp with the side door open, with some­one in there tak­ing pho­tographs or car­ry­ing out some oth­er type of espi­onage activ­i­ty. The occu­pants of this van are remark­ably cam­era-shy. Gar­da num­bers in ribs on the bay have also increased marked­ly in the last 24 hours. All in all, the state is mak­ing an extra-spe­cial effort on Shel­l’s behalf here in Co. Mayo.

—-

Pat & Jonathan O’Don­nell Arrest­ed and Boats Com­man­deered by Gar­dai As Soli­taire’s Arrival Immi­nent

June 25 2009

Fish­er­men arrest­ed for the crime of fish­ing in Broad­haven Bay

In a reprise of last year’s repeat­ed arrests on the waters of Broad­haven Bay, Shel­l’s Gar­dai have arrest­ed Pat ‘the Chief’ O’Don­nell and his son Jonathan while they were fish­ing in Broad­haven Bay this morn­ing. Their two boats were com­man­deered by Gar­dai and brought to Bal­ly­glass pier under tow and naval escort. Gar­dai claim that the two boats were ‘loi­ter­ing’, the new term for crim­i­nal­is­ing fish­er­men exer­cis­ing their rights to fish in their native waters. Pat’s broth­er Mar­tin is cur­rent­ly still on the water in the bay fish­ing in his boat. Mean­while the Soli­taire is less than an hour away from arriv­ing off Glen­gad.

Ear­li­er this morn­ing Pat and Jonathan O’Don­nell were arrest­ed by Gar­dai while exer­cis­ing their right to fish in Broad­haven Bay, waters that Pat and his fam­i­ly have fished for five gen­er­a­tions. Gar­dai board­ed the O’Don­nells’ two ves­sels, arrest­ed the men for ‘loi­ter­ing’, and brought their ves­sels under tow and naval escort to the near­by pier at Bal­ly­glass. All this hap­pened while Pat and his boat was under Gar­da ‘pro­tec­tion’. Jonathan has been tak­en to Bal­li­na Gar­da sta­tion, but there is no word as yet of where Pat is detained. Pat’s broth­er Mar­tin is still fish­ing in the bay at the time of writ­ing.

In anoth­er devel­op­ment, a mixed group of thir­ty-five reg­u­lar and pub­lic order Gar­dai have tak­en up a posi­tion on the beach adja­cent to the Ross­port Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp, pre­sum­ably in an attempt to pre­vent actions hap­pen­ing on the water today. When the Gar­dai were asked by campers and locals what law­ful author­i­ty they had to do this they were not answered by any Gar­da.

The pipe-lay­ing ship the Soli­taire is due to arrive in Broad­haven Bay in an hour or so, as of the time of writ­ing. The arrest of the fish­er­men and their pro­cess­ing by Gar­dai in dis­tant sta­tions is a bla­tant attempt to facil­i­tate Shel­l’s project works in the bay with every under­hand­ed method at their dis­pos­al. If there ever was a time to get to Mayo to sup­port this com­mu­ni­ty fight­ing back against state cor­rup­tion and cor­po­rate greed it is now!

Solitaire Arrives in Rossport

25.6.2009
The Soli­taire, the huge pip lay­ing ship, that will lay the pipeline in Broad­haven Bay has arrived. If you were think­ing of com­ing to Ross­port this sum­mer now is the time. Resis­tance con­tin­ues whilst 200 Gar­dai and the Irish Navy are draft­ed in to facil­i­tate Shel­l’s project.

Soli­taire on the horizon,more arrests — the resis­tance con­tin­ues — Sol­i­dar­i­ty!

25.6.2009
The Soli­taire, the huge pip lay­ing ship, that will lay the pipeline in Broad­haven Bay has arrived. If you were think­ing of com­ing to Ross­port this sum­mer now is the time. Resis­tance con­tin­ues whilst 200 Gar­dai and the Irish Navy are draft­ed in to facil­i­tate Shel­l’s project.

Soli­taire on the horizon,more arrests — the resis­tance con­tin­ues — Sol­i­dar­i­ty!

At approx­i­mate­ly 5.30pm on Wednes­day, two swim­mers were arrest­ed in Broad­haven Bay by the joint Gar­daí and Naval force

As the Soli­taires arrival looms large,the state ups the pres­sure with more friv­o­lous arrests

At approx­i­mate­ly 5.30pm on Wednes­day, two swim­mers were arrest­ed in Broad­haven Bay by the joint Gar­daí and Naval force, for oppos­ing Shel­l’s Cor­rib Gas Project. Both were quite a dis­tance out­side of Shel­l’s so-called ‘exclu­sion zone’ in the Bay when they were arrest­ed by Gar­dai jump­ing towards them from RIBs (Rigid Inflat­able Boats). The protest was against prepara­to­ry cable work being done before the arrival of the Soli­taire. Nei­ther pro­test­er was close to any machin­ery, or stop­ping any work from tak­ing place. This brings to 22 the num­ber of peo­ple arrest­ed this month for oppos­ing Shell.

This forms part of a larg­er pat­tern of arbi­trary arrest, through which Gar­dai are seek­ing to repress peace­ful protest against Shel­l’s dis­as­trous Cor­rib Gas Project. Recent weeks have seen dra­con­ian attempts to remand first-time offend­ers to cus­tody for rel­a­tive­ly minor offences, along with very high bail mon­ey being demand­ed for pro­test­ers. The attempt­ed crim­i­nal­i­sa­tion of cam­paign­ers rais­es very seri­ous ques­tions about civ­il lib­er­ties and the infring­ing on the right to protest.

Shell to Sea spokesper­son Mau­ra Har­ring­ton said: “The hun­dreds of Gar­dai and Naval per­son­nel draft­ed into the area in the last 48 hours shows just how far the gov­ern­ment will go to facil­i­tate Shell, despite the fact that this project is com­plete­ly against the inter­ests of the peo­ple of this coun­try. These lat­est arrests are mere­ly the Gar­daí and Navy try­ing to jus­ti­fy the immense and total­ly dis­pro­por­tion­ate force that has been sent down by the State to force this project through”

LE Emer is cur­rent­ly sta­tioned in Broad­haven Bay and Navy RIBs crewed by Gar­daí and Navy per­son­nel are cur­rent­ly being used against pro­tes­tors.

http://shelltosea.com

Raynesway eviction today

25.6.2009
Raynesway peace camp needs you now !

25.6.2009
Raynesway peace camp needs you now !

The peace camp at Raynesway Der­by was set up as an anti nuclear cam­paign against Rolls Royce ( across the road ) for their part in sup­ply­ing reac­tors and parts for the tri­dent Nuclear subs , it is due evic­tion today at 4 pm . If you have the time spare please get down to the site and show sup­port .

Pro­test­ers are want­i­ng Rolls Royce to phase out all nuclear activ­i­ties at the Rayensway plant with­in the next 5 years and move into work which is sus­tain­able and pro­vide and make pub­licly avail­able a com­pre­hen­sive evac­u­a­tion plan for peo­ple liv­ing and work­ing with­in a two mile radius of the fac­to­ry. This plan should be thor­ough­ly test­ed and eval­u­at­ed by the local coun­cil and emer­gency ser­vices.

What you can do
Get down to the camp and show your sup­port tree hous­es are already in place and we are work­ing on a com­mu­ni­ty space, there is plen­ty of room as the site is locat­ed on the old Ram Are­na, the old train­ing ground for Der­by’s foot­ball team so there is an over­grown foot­ball size patch for tents, as well as an old gym which has nice graf­fi­ti all of which are under a sec­tion 6 notice (right to squat) the site backs on to a fork off the riv­er Der­went and is full of wildlife and trees.

Although we have no spe­cif­ic requests for tat at the moment but climb­ing gear and the usu­al stuff is always need­ed

The police are aware of the site and so far have been polite and min­i­mal num­bers (solo cop) and seem to be vis­it­ing once a day

The site is easy to get to by fol­low­ing the riv­er foot­paths for Alvas­ton form the city cen­tre, look out for the peace signs

The loca­tion of the site is between point A and the sign A5111 on the right hand side of the road on the Google map
http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&q=Raynesway,+Derby,+Derby,+United+Kingdom&sll=53.800651,-4.064941&sspn=9.040008,27.070313&ie=UTF8&cd=1&geocode=FSNNJwMd_irq_w&split=0&ll=52.903415,-1.431656&spn=0.018016,0.052872&z=14

Google street view of the entrance http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?utm_campaign=en_GB&utm_medium=ha&utm_source=en_GB-ha-emea-gb-bk-gm&utm_term=road

Site phone num­ber 07908534383

Mainshill Solidarity Camp presented with eviction papers

At 17:00 in the after­noon on Wednes­day 24th of June occu­piers of the Main­shill Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp in south Lanark­shire were hand­ed evic­tion papers by a sher­iff offi­cer. The Sol­i­dar­i­ty camp has been sum­moned to appear at Lanark sher­iff court on Mon­day the 29th at 9:45 am.

At 17:00 in the after­noon on Wednes­day 24th of June occu­piers of the Main­shill Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp in south Lanark­shire were hand­ed evic­tion papers by a sher­iff offi­cer. The Sol­i­dar­i­ty camp has been sum­moned to appear at Lanark sher­iff court on Mon­day the 29th at 9:45 am.

The Main­shill Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp was estab­lished on Fri­day 26th in the Dou­glas Val­ley in South Lanark­shire to show sup­port to the local com­mu­ni­ty who are oppos­ing a new open­cast site from being built in the area. Tree-hous­es and oth­er struc­tures in the wood­land have been put in place to show Scot­tish Coal that they are seri­ous about pre­vent­ing the open­cast site from going ahead.

”Scot­tish Coal and Lord Home have no right to evict us from this wood’ Said Anna Key a care work­er and one of the campers cur­rent­ly liv­ing on the Site. ”Plan­ning per­mis­sion states that they have to car­ry out an envi­ron­men­tal sur­vey from Spring until Autumn before they can start work. Because they have com­menced drilling oper­a­tions and tree felling we have been forced to occu­py the site to stop this ille­gal work from hap­pen­ing.”

On Sun­day the 28th the Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp are hold­ing a com­mu­ni­ty pic­nic at 3pm to which every­one is invit­ed. Many peo­ple from the local com­mu­ni­ty will come down to drink tea and eat cake with the campers, learn how to climb trees and paint ban­ners to make the site look wel­com­ing.

The sol­i­dar­i­ty camp intends to do all it can to stop the new open­cast mine from going ahead and has the full sup­port of the local com­mu­ni­ty. Come along to the pic­nic on Sun­day to get involved!

Aviation biofuels protest targets Virgin Atlantic

Activists from Plane Stu­pid and Action Against Agro­fu­els protest­ed at Heathrow Ter­mi­nal 3 out­side the Vir­gin check-in about the pro­posed use of bio­fu­els for avi­a­tion.

Virgin biofuel action 1Virgin biofuel action 2Activists from Plane Stu­pid and Action Against Agro­fu­els protest­ed at Heathrow Ter­mi­nal 3 out­side the Vir­gin check-in about the pro­posed use of bio­fu­els for avi­a­tion. Mon­day 22nd June was cho­sen as it was the 25th anniver­sary of Vir­gin Atlantic who plan to meet 5% of their 2015 avi­a­tion fuel quo­ta from bio­fu­els. Most of this will inevitably come from palm oil.

Mon­day was the 25th anniver­sary of Vir­gin Atlantic. They cel­e­brat­ed at Gatwick Ter­mi­nal 3 with a repeat of their 1:00pm maid­en flight from Lon­don to Newark in 1984.

The protest con­tin­ued for over 5 hours. At the final count 11 activists were arrest­ed.
Virgin biofuel action 3
News sto­ry here:
http://latestnews.virginmedia.com/news/environment/2009/06/22/anti_airport_protesters_arrested

And press release below:

9 arrest­ed as Plane Stu­pid and Action Against Agro­fu­els (AAA) crash Vir­gin Atlantic 25th birth­day par­ty

9 activists from Plane Stu­pid and AAA (Action Against Agro­fu­els) have been arrest­ed gate crash­ing Vir­gin Atlantic’s 25th birth­day par­ty at Heathrow air­port, to high­light plans to allow the avi­a­tion indus­try to con­tin­ue to expand if it uses bio­fu­els instead of con­ven­tion­al avi­a­tion fuel.

Two men, dressed as stew­ardess­es, are still on top of the entrance to the Vir­gin com­plex at Ter­mi­nal 3 where the cel­e­bra­tion is being held. Out­side more activists, also dressed as stew­ardess­es, unfurled a ban­ner read­ing, “Avi­a­tion Indus­try: no way out” and “Cli­mate Crim­i­nals Inside”. All those out­side have now either been arrest­ed or moved on by the police.

Vir­gin has been an out­spo­ken sup­port­er of bio­fu­els as a solu­tion to the steeply ris­ing emis­sions from air­craft, but sci­en­tists are crit­i­cal of plans to scale up their pro­duc­tion to meet the new demand for replace­ment fuels.

Mary­la Hart, spokesper­son for AAA said, “Vir­gin Atlantic are claim­ing to be “Red Hot after 25 years”, but with bio­fu­els it’s going to be a red hot plan­et we’ll be liv­ing on. Today’s cel­e­bra­tion is all about hav­ing fun but the biggest joke of the par­ty is that the
avi­a­tion indus­try are sell­ing bio­fu­els as a green solu­tion to their prob­lems.”

Josh Moos of Plane Stu­pid said, “Vir­gin are invest­ing mas­sive­ly in try­ing to make bio­fu­els work, but bio­fu­els are no way out for the avi­a­tion indus­try. It’s far­ci­cal to sug­gest that bio­fu­els are the answer when last year it took 150,000 coconuts to pro­vide just 5% of the fuel for a one-way flight from Lon­don to Ams­ter­dam. In real­i­ty it will be oth­er veg­etable oil blends such as palm oil pow­er­ing air­craft, but the soar­ing demand for palm oil is already dri­ving trop­i­cal defor­esta­tion.”

Dee Rughani of AAA added, “The avi­a­tion indus­try is pre­tend­ing that bio­fu­els reduce green­house gas emis­sions when all the peer reviewed sci­ence states that the oppo­site is true. Whether it’s palm oil or 2nd gen­er­a­tion bio­fu­els, both will still com­pete for land, so any growth in this indus­try will add fur­ther to the 100 mil­lion peo­ple
already going hun­gry due to bio­fu­els whilst exac­er­bat­ing trop­i­cal for­est destruc­tion and cli­mate change.”

Solitaire due in Broadhaven Bay, Mayo tomorrow

23.6.2009

23.6.2009
If you’ve been wait­ing for the most impor­tant time to come to Mayo: this is it. The camp real­ly needs peo­ple here to con­tin­ue last year’s bril­liant resis­tance. The Soli­taire will be here any day, so we need you here now! This is a cru­cial stage in the cam­paign: the time frame for work is very lim­it­ed by good weath­er and action now against the Soli­taire can real­ly help put a stop to Shell’s project!

The pipe-lay­ing ship the Soli­taire has declared itself that it intends to be in Broad­haven Bay at 12pm tomor­row. It is now urgent that peo­ple get to Mayo to stop Shell lay­ing the off­shore sec­tion of pipe to the Cor­rib gas­field well-head from the Glen­gad com­pound.

The Soli­taire’s own AIS (Auto­mat­ic Iden­ti­fi­ca­tion at Sea) bea­con is now giv­ing the ship’s des­ti­na­tion as Broad Haven Bay (sic) with an esti­mat­ed time of arrival of 12:00pm on the 24th of June, that is tomor­row noon. This infor­ma­tion was picked up by the Ross­port Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp at 10:30 this morn­ing. It is now urgent that peo­ple get to Mayo to help stop the Soli­taire lay­ing the off­shore sec­tion of pipe to the Cor­rib gas­field well-head from Shel­l’s com­pound at Glen­gad. The Soli­taire is cur­rent­ly at anchor, but it will prob­a­bly set sail in the next six to eight hours. This infor­ma­tion can be checked on www.shipais.com, and the Soli­taire can be tracked on this site as it leaves port to head for Erris.

rossportsolidaritycamp[at]gmail[dot]com
http://www.shelltosea.com

bikesnotcars am*dam july3,4,5

In the week­end of july 4th we declare a war on cars. In this week­end there will be a bike fes­ti­val in Ams­ter­dam. On dif­fer­ent loca­tions events, work­shops, info stands, fun & games, par­ties, and direct actions to block and frus­trate the traf­fic will be held. Cars lead to pol­lu­tion, cli­mate change, deaths and injuries.

In the week­end of july 4th we declare a war on cars. In this week­end there will be a bike fes­ti­val in Ams­ter­dam. On dif­fer­ent loca­tions events, work­shops, info stands, fun & games, par­ties, and direct actions to block and frus­trate the traf­fic will be held. Cars lead to pol­lu­tion, cli­mate change, deaths and injuries. They are a nui­sance, and are dom­i­nat­ing the pub­lic space.Where the pub­lic space is not designed to facil­i­tate the ever con­sum­ing shop­ping fren­zy and indus­try it is designed to please fos­sil-fuel-traf­fic.

The pro­gram of the bike fest in ams­ter­dam july 3rd, 4th and 5th is out…

Fri­day, ijs­baan­pad 12, ams­ter­dam
— oppor­tu­ni­ty for those with­out a bike to fix one
— ban­ner paint­ing
in the evening soup and a band

sat­ur­day
— 14.00h crit­i­cal mass, muse­um square, sith bike­po­lo and slow­bik­ing on the way
— 19.00h ijs­baan­pad, voku, folowed by bands:
de fat­was
de reclasser­ing
hys­te­ria
and one more band

sun­day
— info­mar­ket
— work­shops
— car­go bike race
— tall bike joust­ing

please dont bring your dogs to ijs­baan­pad

there is a place for sleep­ing but bring a matres and sleep­ing­bag

to bring list:
bed + sleep­ing­bag
bike(s)
basic repairk­it
ban­ners
no id
no dogs

see you there

bikesnotcars@gmail.com
http://bikesnotcars.wordpress.com