Shell return to Glengad in force

Pro­tes­tors beat­en by Gar­dai

22nd April 2009 UPDATE UPDATE
Today’s fenc­ing (and gates?) in Glen­gad is right now being removed by the com­mu­ni­ty.

Shell returned in force today to Glen­gad, arriv­ing about 6.45, by about 7 pro­test­ers from the com­mu­ni­ty and camp had start­ed to gath­er.

Pro­tes­tors beat­en by Gar­dai

22nd April 2009 UPDATE UPDATE
Shell's fencingToday’s fenc­ing (and gates?) in Glen­gad is right now being removed by the com­mu­ni­ty.

Shell returned in force today to Glen­gad, arriv­ing about 6.45, by about 7 pro­test­ers from the com­mu­ni­ty and camp had start­ed to gath­er.

On and under the fencing lorryWillie Cor­duff, Gold­man Envi­ron­men­tal Award Win­ner and 2 oth­ers climbed under a truck car­ry­ing pal­isade fenc­ing on the SAC. A camper climbed onto a tele­scop­ic loader, lat­er chang­ing to a 20t excavator/digger used for lift­ing the fenc­ing pan­els.
9 hour digger sit
Mau­ra Har­ring­ton par­tial­ly blocked the front entrance of the com­pound with her car, and through­out the day many folk jumped the fence and tried to stop the destruc­tion of this pris­tine habi­tat.

Shell had dozens of secu­ri­ty and dozens of work­ers, but were severe­ly ham­pered in their activ­i­ties by stiff local resis­tance. The occu­pa­tion of truck and dig­ger meant that they had only lim­it­ed resources for their work, but in the late after­noon they had anoth­er dig­ger and anoth­er truck load of fenc­ing dropped to site.

The Gar­dai tried to talk the dig­ger jumper and Wille & co out but to no avail, they sim­ply kept stat­ing that they want­ed to see Shell’s per­mis­sions to be car­ry­ing out the work. When this failed they took a more direct approach with the men under the lor­ry. They man­aged to pull Willie’s boots off and stared twist­ing his toes, they threw stones at them and beat Willie on the ankle with a rock, while anoth­er lor­ry pro­tes­tor had his had repeat­ed­ly banged off the ground by a thug mas­querad­ing as a Inspec­tor. Willie was also scratched and stuck in the pri­vates by Gar­dai.
Gardai getting under lorry
As the hours ticked by the Gar­dai had Maura’s car towed by plant hire own­er Carey. After 9hrs on the dig­ger the camper was grabbed by secu­ri­ty and forcibly pulled off, severe­ly bruis­ing his legs and arm. The oth­er 2 peo­ple under the lor­ry spent approx 8hrs under it.

The weath­er turned nasty with gale force winds and dri­ving rain, which made life dif­fi­cult for pro­test­ers and work­ers alike.

This evening Willie remains under the lor­ry and the Gar­dai have left. Anoth­er man man­aged to get under the lor­ry with Willie this evening. There is a large secu­ri­ty force still in Glen­gad, with a crowd form­ing of solemn pro­test­ers stand­ing near Willie in the dark but the sit­u­a­tion still seems poten­tial­ly volatile. Rumour is that sev­er­al fire brigade units are on their way to lift the lor­ry and remove him.

The local radio sta­tion, Mid­west Radio, have been open­ly call­ing in their news for Shell to pro­duce doc­u­men­ta­tion to the effect that they have the nec­es­sary per­mis­sions to work in Glen­gad which they don’t seem to have.

Around noon or so the por­taloos that Shell had dropped on the SAC blew over and all their chem­i­cals poured out onto the SAC, no attempt was made to clean up the chem­i­cal spill and the por­taloos were only stood up again about 7pm.

Today Shell even­tu­al­ly man­aged to put up large front gates and cre­ate the top com­pound sec­tion with a 2nd set of gates lead­ing down into the SAC.

Despite telling 1 or 2 peo­ple they were arrest­ed no arrests were made.

Peo­ple are frus­trat­ed & angry but deter­mined, they need all the help they can get, so now is the time to get to Erris if you can, for what­ev­er sup­port you can give.

Scarborough Climate Action Network opens community resource centre.

After being inspired into action by the fight against glob­al cli­mate chaos, the Scar­bor­ough Cli­mate Action group have opened “Green Plan­et”, a com­mu­ni­ty resource cen­tre for edu­ca­tion, infor­ma­tion and par­tic­i­pa­tion on the east coast of York­shire.

They aim to pro­vide a cen­tral point for peo­ple in the local area to

After being inspired into action by the fight against glob­al cli­mate chaos, the Scar­bor­ough Cli­mate Action group have opened “Green Plan­et”, a com­mu­ni­ty resource cen­tre for edu­ca­tion, infor­ma­tion and par­tic­i­pa­tion on the east coast of York­shire.

They aim to pro­vide a cen­tral point for peo­ple in the local area to find out how they can make pos­i­tive changes to their envi­ron­ment, as well as pro­vid­ing an autonomous space for peo­ple to use the inter­net, meet like-mind­ed peo­ple and get direct­ly involved with the new­ly bur­geon­ing Scar­bor­ough activist net­works.

Scarborough 2

Scarborough 3The Scar­bor­ough Cli­mate Action Net­work, for­mer­ly Scar­bor­ough Against Cli­mate Change was set up in the after­math of last years Kingsnorth Cli­mate Camp. A group of local activists who attend­ed the camp were inspired to con­sid­er ways in which they could make more of an impact in their local area at a grass­roots lev­el. In a mod­el of how small, local groups can make a dif­fer­ence in their com­mu­ni­ties through col­lec­tive organ­i­sa­tion and coop­er­a­tion, the Green Plan­et resource cen­tre is now open to the com­mu­ni­ty.

Hav­ing organ­ised cam­paigns in the town cen­tre of Scar­bor­ough against the use of coal and to pro­mote the urgent need to cut car­bon emis­sions, it seemed clear from the pos­i­tive yet mis­in­formed response of the com­mu­ni­ty that a focal point was need­ed to raise aware­ness of the issues amongst the peo­ple of the east coast area. The need for an autonomous social space in the town was iden­ti­fied as the best way to get this mes­sage across and so the group set about mak­ing this hap­pen.

Scarborough 4The col­lec­tives newslet­ter, being pub­lished and dis­trib­uted wide­ly in the local area, clear­ly sets out their core aims:

  • To raise aware­ness local­ly, of the seri­ous threat of human induced cli­mate change, which is already affect­ing peo­ple world­wide.
  • To encour­age local peo­ple to make envi­ron­men­tal­ly friend­ly lifestyle changes
  • To encour­age local and nation­al gov­ern­ment to take more effec­tive action to com­bat cli­mate change

With the pro­ceeds of fundrais­ing and a £3500 grant from Artists Project Earth (APE), they man­aged to obtain a prop­er­ty in Hanover Road, behind the Stephen Joseph The­atre in the town cen­tre. A team of vol­un­teers began the task of turn­ing the venue into an inclu­sive, open space in which to achieve their objec­tives.

Scarborough 5Scarborough 6Scarborough 7Scarborough 8

Paint, wood and oth­er mate­ri­als were col­lect­ed from skips and bins in the local area and put to reuse as desks, shelves and dis­plays for cam­paign lit­er­a­ture and calls to action. A com­put­er that was donat­ed by a mem­ber of the col­lec­tive is being lib­er­at­ed by open source soft­ware and con­nect­ed to the inter­net for any­one in the com­mu­ni­ty to use. A small kitchen has also been set up to pro­vide drinks for vis­i­tors, in the hope that peo­ple will stop by reg­u­lar­ly to get infor­ma­tion and ideas for action.

The lit­er­a­ture avail­able in the cen­tre cov­ers a wide range of issues, from cli­mate activism to NO2ID. The col­lec­tive is also prepar­ing a list of books which pro­mote pos­i­tive envi­ron­men­tal change to order at the local library so as to be acces­si­ble to the whole com­mu­ni­ty. The main hope is that the peo­ple of Scar­bor­ough will turn to the space as inspi­ra­tion to make pos­i­tive changes to their lives, be it using alter­na­tive tech­nol­o­gy, reduc­ing their pow­er con­sump­tion, chang­ing their diet or any com­bi­na­tion of the many alter­na­tives that are need­ed to halt the cur­rent slide towards cli­mate cat­a­stro­phe.

Scarborough 9

The cen­tre will also func­tion as a place where peo­ple from the local area can get involved in the Leeds/Bradford IMC and will be host­ing a skill­share soon on media activism and elec­tron­ic secu­ri­ty. A range of oth­er skill­shares, film nights, action-based events and talks will also take place, both at the cen­tre and at the local Uni­ver­si­ty. These will be adver­tised local­ly and in the events sec­tion of LBIMC.

Scarborough 11Any­one is wel­come to join the group and a call has been made for peo­ple to help with the day to day oper­a­tion of the cen­tre, with vol­un­teers need­ed to pro­vide good envi­ron­men­tal advice to the com­mu­ni­ty on a rota basis in order to make the resource reli­ably avail­able.

Any­one in the area with an inter­est is encour­aged to get in touch by email at scarboroughccc@hotmail.co.uk or sim­ply drop by the cen­tre for a friend­ly chat.

Links to local news cov­er­age of the group:
Cli­mate Group Head­ing to Camp | We must burn less coal | Set­ting the right cli­mate

Relat­ed Indy­media cov­er­age:
Cli­mate Camp 08 | Swin­don Cli­mate Action Net­work | Mass action at Drax

Another 3 people from the Lappersfort Forest arrested

Around mid­night on 21st April three peo­ple from the Lap­pers­fort for­est occu­pa­tion in Brugge, Bel­gium were arrest­ed.

They were on their way back to the for­est on foot when they were sprung on by at least 6 pigs dressed in black & a police dog who were wait­ing on ambush. At the moment all we know is they are accused of damaging/vandalising a road being con­struct­ed through the for­est.

Around mid­night on 21st April three peo­ple from the Lap­pers­fort for­est occu­pa­tion in Brugge, Bel­gium were arrest­ed.

They were on their way back to the for­est on foot when they were sprung on by at least 6 pigs dressed in black & a police dog who were wait­ing on ambush. At the moment all we know is they are accused of damaging/vandalising a road being con­struct­ed through the for­est.

The road con­struc­tion began in sept.08 and was met with large protest from the local com­mu­ni­ty, as part of the Lap­pers­fort for­est by the canal was to be destroyed to make way for its con­struc­tion. Activists man­aged to occu­py the threat­ened trees on the first night of con­struc­tion (sept. 2nd) despite a police cor­don of some 250 pig­gies, and delayed work for some hours. Since then, through­out the 7 months of the occu­pa­tion the con­struc­tion com­pa­ny, police & media have accused the occu­piers of sab­o­tage against their pumps and cranes, with­out any proof or charges.

The arrests are part of an ongo­ing sequence of repres­sion. Less than 2 weeks ago two peo­ple were final­ly released from Brugge prison after spend­ing 10 days in the cell based on false charges and fab­ri­cat­ed sto­ries from the Brugge cops. On the day of the lat­est 3 arrests, under­cov­er and uni­formed pig­gies had been seen around the for­est and talk­ing with the con­struc­tion work­ers, and the nature of the arrest shows that the cops here in Brugge are sim­ply try­ing to find any excuse, real or not, to arrest as many peo­ple as pos­si­ble.
We don’t know yet exact­ly what their charges are, or when the 3 peo­ple will be released, but they are already in cus­tody for more than 12 hours, which means they are arrest­ed juridi­cal­ly and will have to see a judge in the Brugge cour­t­house some­time tomor­row.

lap­pers­fort occu­piers — lappersfort@gmail.com

JNC Squats Resist Double Eviction

The two occu­pied social cen­tres oper­at­ing under the Jus­tice Not Cri­sis ban­ner dis­cov­ered on Mon­day that they were both to be evict­ed on the same day — Tues­day 21 April. This was not to be, thanks to a spir­it­ed resis­tance from the squat­ters and sup­port­ers.

conservation areaThe two occu­pied social cen­tres oper­at­ing under the Jus­tice Not Cri­sis ban­ner dis­cov­ered on Mon­day that they were both to be evict­ed on the same day — Tues­day 21 April. This was not to be, thanks to a spir­it­ed resis­tance from the squat­ters and sup­port­ers. To suc­cess­ful­ly defend one squat can be con­sid­ered for­tu­nate; to defend two in one morn­ing begins to seem mirac­u­lous. It just goes to show that the pow­ers that be are far from infal­li­ble, and that sol­id peace­ful direct action can bring major ben­e­fits for the com­mu­ni­ty. The squats how­ev­er remain on high evic­tion alert, and request all sup­port­ers to mobilise. Come down, even if for an hour, and help keep these facil­i­ties open for work­ers, for the envi­ron­ment and for the com­mu­ni­ty.
Notice of a Tues­day evic­tion for the Social Jus­tice Cen­tre at 318 Per­shore Road was giv­en some days in advance. This was how­ev­er thrown into doubt after the legal own­ers, War­wick­shire Crick­et Club, sud­den­ly found them­selves with­out a promised loan of £20 mil­lion from Birm­ing­ham’s coun­cil lead­ers [see: http://www.birminghampost.net/news/west-midlands-news/2009/04/17/council-s-20m-funding-offer-for-edgbaston-cricket-ground-blocked-65233–23404529] and spec­u­la­tion was rife that they may wish to open nego­ti­a­tions with the squat­ters to rent the build­ing after los­ing such major finance. The Cen­tre hous­es sev­er­al home­less peo­ple, many were rough sleep­ers, and suc­cess­ful­ly man­aged, with oth­ers, by a per­son who was for­mer­ly sleep­ing rough on Brum­mie streets. It also hous­es part of the Birm­ing­ham Peo­ple’s Library, a long run­ning ini­tia­tive giv­en new life by the squat, as well as pro­vid­ing a venue for var­i­ous social and cul­tur­al activ­i­ties includ­ing advice for ben­e­fit claimants.
The squat­ted for­mer Beech­wood Hotel and con­ser­va­tion area at 201 Bris­tol Road, mean­while, lost its legal defence against a pos­ses­sion order by the pri­vate own­ers, Manor Coast Ltd (Pro­pri­etor: Mr Kang) in the High Court on April 17th. This squat, as well as pro­vid­ing a sim­i­lar facil­i­ty to the Social Jus­tice Cen­tre, also has a con­scious eco­log­i­cal focus. This is because the exten­sive grounds form part of a nature con­ser­va­tion area, which seems irrel­e­vant to the own­ers and for­mer man­agers. Mr Kang him­self was con­vict­ed of ille­gal­ly remov­ing trees with­in it; there has also been dump­ing and burn­ing of tox­ic waste on site. Sus­pi­cion is rife that Mr Kang is using a strat­e­gy famil­iar to landown­ers who find them­selves sad­dled with incon­ve­nient reg­u­la­tions in the pub­lic good — delib­er­ate run­ning down of the land so that it will lose its pro­tect­ed sta­tus. The own­ers will then be free to ‘devel­op’ the site in the inter­ests of Cap­i­tal and big busi­ness while destroy­ing these impor­tant facil­i­ties. The occu­piers are keen to turn this sit­u­a­tion around and restore the grounds to prop­er eco­log­i­cal man­age­ment, and are work­ing with local stake­hold­ers to this end. In the mean­time, prac­ti­cal steps tak­en include the plant­i­ng of a veg­etable plot. There is a per­ma­cul­ture day planned for this Sat­ur­day 25th April dur­ing which fur­ther prac­ti­cal steps are to be tak­en as well as shar­ing skills in these areas, and all are wel­come.
On Mon­day notice was received that both squats were to be evict­ed the fol­low­ing morn­ing. The deci­sion made to defend these build­ings, sup­port­ers were mobilised and defences put in place. Bailiffs turned up first at 318 Per­shore Road, at 9am and, after an hour or so of faff, moved peo­ple away from the front door and pro­ceed­ed to break down the door and bar­ri­cade, ignor­ing the lone squat­ter on the roof. Police in atten­dance con­firmed that he was not caus­ing a breach of the peace, even pre­vent­ing him from com­ing down from the roof on health and safe­ty grounds. It soon became appar­ent that with­out remov­ing him, the Crick­et Club had not legal­ly tak­en pos­ses­sion of the build­ing and after leav­ing the build­ing was reoc­cu­pied by the squat­ters.
At Bris­tol Road, the same bailiffs attend­ed at 11am with Mr Kang and a lock­smith, and police. Here they were faced with up to eight peo­ple on the roof, and more inside the build­ing. After 90 min­utes of more faff, police left fol­lowed swift­ly by bailiffs. Last to leave was the lock­smith who had not even got out of his vehi­cle through­out.
After this some­what unex­pect­ed dou­ble vic­to­ry, the occu­piers while jubi­lant remain on high evic­tion alert and request all sup­port­ers to come down to help defend the build­ing from fur­ther attacks. It is a beau­ti­ful build­ing and grounds and well worth keep­ing open. Mean­while, the occu­piers con­tin­ue their request to nego­ti­ate some civ­il arrange­ment with the legal own­ers so that the work can con­tin­ue.
Jus­tice Not Cri­sis com­ment­ed:
“This is a major vic­to­ry for home­less peo­ple, res­i­dents and land con­ser­va­tion and we are obvi­ous­ly delight­ed with the result. We are also con­cerned that despite our requests we have had no com­mu­ni­ca­tion with either WCCC or Mr Kang regard­ing our wish to rent the prop­er­ty and man­age them prop­er­ly pay­ing rent to the respec­tive own­ers. We will con­tin­ue to attempt nego­ti­a­tions and hope to resolve the mat­ter with­out caus­ing the own­ers any more costs in instruct­ing bailiffs.”

See indy­media for forth­com­ing video of this event.

Calais No Border Camp 23–29 June

The Calais No Bor­der camp is an excit­ing joint ven­ture between French activists and migrant sup­port groups and the UK No Bor­ders Net­work.

The Calais No Bor­der camp is an excit­ing joint ven­ture between French activists and migrant sup­port groups and the UK No Bor­ders Net­work.

It aims to high­light the real­i­ties of the sit­u­a­tion in Calais and North­ern France; to build links with the migrant com­mu­ni­ties; to help build links between migrants sup­port groups; and last­ly, but not least, to chal­lenge the author­i­ties on the ground, to protest against increased repres­sion of migrants and local activists alike.

Why Calais?
For cen­turies Euro­pean impe­r­i­al pow­ers have exploit­ed the land, resources and peo­ple of the major­i­ty world to become wealthy and pow­er­ful, leav­ing war, envi­ron­men­tal destruc­tion and mas­sive inequal­i­ty in their wake. Those who attempt the jour­ney to the UK are chal­leng­ing this injus­tice by their move­ment.

At the end of this jour­ney they face anoth­er human­i­tar­i­an cri­sis — caused by the increas­ing­ly repres­sive British and EU immi­gra­tion poli­cies. This makes the Calais bor­der an impor­tant focal point for the strug­gle between those who would see an end to all migra­tion into the EU and those try­ing to break down the bar­ri­ers between peo­ples and the bor­ders that pre­vent the free­dom of move­ment for all all but the priv­i­leged few.

Build­ing a move­ment against bor­ders:
This camp is not just about Calais: we are call­ing for the free­dom of move­ment for all, an end to bor­ders and to all migra­tion con­trols. We need to build a rad­i­cal transna­tion­al move­ment to chal­lenge these repres­sive poli­cies that serve to divide us into cit­i­zens and non-cit­i­zens, into the doc­u­ment­ed and the undoc­u­ment­ed.

The Calais camp is a place to strength­en this move­ment and we need your help to make it hap­pen. We call on all groups and indi­vid­u­als that want to show transna­tion­al sol­i­dar­i­ty to join us in Calais. If you want to get involved in help­ing to organ­ise the camp, sup­port us with fundrais­ing and pub­lic­i­ty, host an event on Calais and No Bor­ders or offer prac­ti­cal
skills and sup­port please get in touch (details below).

No one is ille­gal! Free­dom of Move­ment for all!

For more infor­ma­tion and to get involved see:
http://london.noborders.org.uk/calais2009
http://noborders.org.uk
or con­tact calais@riseup.net
More info com­ing soon!

Skyr Thrown in the Heavy Industry Parties’ Election Offices

April 20 2009

Skyr throwing 1Skyr throwing 2April 20 2009
Today, green ’skyr’ (tra­di­tion­al Ice­landic dairy prod­uct) was thrown at the elec­tion offices of three polit­i­cal par­ties, which are respon­si­ble for the inva­sion of the alu­mini­um indus­try into Ice­land. Skyr throw­ing is the Ice­landic equiv­a­lent of pie throw­ing and has become a tra­di­tion in the envi­ron­men­tal strug­gle; the last sim­i­lar action took place only one and a half month ago.

At 11:00 this morn­ing, peo­ple rushed into an office of Sam­fylkingin (the Social Demo­c­ra­t­ic Alliance) in Haf­nar­fjörður, and threw the green liq­uid over the party’s pro­pa­gan­da, fur­ni­ture and the floor. At a sim­i­lar time Fram­sók­narflokkurinn (right wing) was tar­get­ed in Kópavogur. The win­dows of the elec­tion office were com­plete­ly cov­ered in green liq­uid, as well as adver­tise­ment signs out­side the build­ing.

Two hours lat­er, green ’skyr’ was thrown inside an office of Sjálf­stæð­is­flokkurinn (right wing con­ser­v­a­tives) close to the cen­ter of Reyk­javík. The whole office was cov­ered; fur­ni­ture, floors and pro­pa­gan­da.

Skyr Why these tar­gets?
The tar­gets are all under­stand­able, since these three par­ties share the respon­si­bil­i­ty for the envi­ron­men­tal and eco­nom­i­cal cri­sis Ice­land is now fac­ing.

Rio Tin­to-Alcan oper­ates an alu­mini­um smelter in Haf­nar­fjörður and has want­ed to enlarge it for sev­er­al years. In a local ref­er­en­dum the major­i­ty of Haf­nar­fjörður inhab­i­tants vot­ed against the enlarge­ment. But since then, RT-Alcan and the city coun­cil, lead by Sam­fylkingin, have tried to force the enlarge­ment through, e.g. by claim­ing that the referendum’s issue was not the enlarge­ment of the smelter, but only city plan­ning. In con­tin­u­a­tion they have sug­gest­ed that the smelter will be enlarged in the oppo­site direc­tion; on a land­fill in the sea. The ener­gy need­ed for the increased pro­duc­tion is sup­posed to come from Þjórsá and Tung­naá Rivers in the south of Ice­land, where there is fierce local oppo­si­tion to fur­ther dams.

Sjálf­stæð­is­flokkurinn was in gov­ern­ment for 17 years, until angry Ice­landers rushed onto the streets of Reyk­javík last Jan­u­ary, protest­ed and in the end top­pled the gov­ern­ment. Dur­ing these years, Sjálf­stæð­is­flokkurinn invit­ed the alu­mini­um indus­try to Ice­land, promis­ing “min­i­mal envi­ron­men­tal red tape” and cheap ener­gy. To ful­fill the party’s mas­ter plan, every major glacial riv­er in Ice­land would have to be dammed, as well as every active geot­her­mal zone.

Skyr­Fram­sók­narflokkurinn formed the oth­er half of the first cor­rupt heavy indus­try coali­tion, hold­ing the min­istries of envi­ron­ment and indus­try. Now, when in par­lia­men­tary oppo­si­tion, the par­ty speaks and behaves like it had noth­ing to do with the eco­nom­ic col­lapse last fall. One of its main aims for the upcom­ing elec­tions is (just like Sjálf­stæð­is­flokkurinn) the con­tin­u­a­tion of the alu­mini­um industry’s inva­sion.

Not for the first time
This is the sec­ond time in a short time peri­od when green skyr is thrown in Ice­land. Ear­ly in March this year, three peo­ple attacked the ener­gy com­pa­nies, while their rep­re­sen­ta­tives took part in green-wash­ing days inside the Uni­ver­si­ty of Ice­land. Read more about it here.

Clean­ing June 14th 2005, green skyr was thrown in an inter­na­tion­al alu­mini­um con­fer­ence in Reyk­javík. This was one of the first Sav­ing Ice­land actions as well as one of the first direct actions tak­en against the government’s heavy indus­try pol­i­cy. Read more here.

The tra­di­tion of throw­ing skyr as a protest orig­i­nates from a mil­i­tant athe­ist action that took place in Reyk­javík, 1970, when one indi­vid­ual, car­pen­ter Hel­gi Hósea­son, threw ’skyr’ over the Ice­landic bish­op, pres­i­dent, the entire gov­ern­ment and mem­bers of par­lia­ment. For years he had fought for the right to be de-bap­tized, but was repeat­ed­ly refused. Hence he took action.

Sizewell Camp and Demo — 25/26th April (& solidarity call-out for anti-nuke actions on Chernobyl Day)

No to New Nuclear Pow­er — Yes to Decen­tralised Ener­gy!

If you do not think nuclear pow­er is the answer to cli­mate chaos come and join us in the 2 day demo and camp this week­end.

Where — Sizewell A and B, Suf­folk UK.
When — 25th April
Time ‑12 noon

Better active today than radioactive tomorrowNo to New Nuclear Pow­er — Yes to Decen­tralised Ener­gy!

If you do not think nuclear pow­er is the answer to cli­mate chaos come and join us in the 2 day demo and camp this week­end.

Where — Sizewell A and B, Suf­folk UK.
When — 25th April
Time ‑12 noon

Speak­ers include- Pete Wilkin­son Co-founder of Green­peace UK, CORWM etc (tbc), Peter Lany­on and Charles Bar­net, Shut Down Sizewell Group, Mell Har­ri­son, Cam­paign for Nuclear Dis­ar­ma­ment and Sizewell Block­aders, Rupert Read Green Par­ty Euro­pean can­di­date.

Bring a ban­ner, friends, music, colour, cos­tume, cakes and tea.

There will also be a camp on the beach over night so that we can hold a vig­il
on the morn­ing of 26th April, Cher­nobyl Day, to remem­ber all those who are still
being affect­ed by the 1986 dis­as­ter.

Bring a tent, water and a sun­shade

More info con­tact 08453370282 or mellcndeast@cnduk.org.

Hope to see you there
more info and local (to sizewell) trans­port con­tact Mell 08453370282

————–

PRESS RELEASE (and UPDATE-
Update- Since the press release below all 5 activists have had their bail con­di­tions removed from 9am on the 25th April to 2pm on the 26th April. So will be able to attend..)

Sizewell Nuclear Pow­er Stations-‘3 times a nui­sance!’

The gov­ern­ment has announced that Sizewell is one of the sites nom­i­nat­ed for a new nuclear pow­er sta­tion, Sizewell activists head to court and a demon­stra­tion against new build at Sizewell is planned. What a week!

Tomor­row (Fri­day 17th, 10 am) the group call­ing them­selves the ‘Sizewell Block­aders’ Rebec­ca Dale 33 from Bun­gay, Mell Har­ri­son 37 from Gelde­ston, Nico­la Stik­les 39 from Sax­mund­ham, Irene Willis 60 from Essex and Pete Lux 44 from Bec­cles, are again appear­ing at Low­est­oft mag­is­trates court for tak­ing direct action against the what they say are ‘unlaw­ful activ­i­ties’ at the nuclear pow­er sta­tions at Sizewell in Suf­folk. The group are hop­ing to have restric­tions on their right to protest lift­ed so that they can attend the two-day demon­stra­tion and camp planned for 25th and 26th April. The rea­son for the planned demon­stra­tion is two fold- one to com­mem­o­rate all those who died and are still affect­ed by the radioac­tive fall­out from the dis­as­ter at Cher­nobyl and two- because the gov­ern­ment has announced that sizewell has been nom­i­nat­ed as a site for not one, but two new nuclear reac­tors.
Local cam­paign­ers are con­cerned about this choice. Mell Har­ri­son , who works for Cam­paign for Nuclear Dis­ar­ma­ment and lives in Suf­folk said, “The flood risks of the sizewell coast are clear, the maps giv­en with the site nom­i­na­tions show just how high risk it is. 10 years of waste are in a fuel pond at the site now- it seems very irre­spon­si­ble to build here,” she con­tin­ued “ every­one knows the risks involved with nuclear pow­er but we are being told it is a nec­es­sary evil to bridge the ener­gy gap- this is not true. Mod­els such as the Bor­ough of Wok­ing show just how decen­tral­i­sa­tion of ener­gy sup­plies can work, not just at deliv­er­ing ener­gy but cut­ting CO2 emis­sions too’
Wok­ing Bor­ough has a pop­u­la­tion of 100,000 and has the largest domes­tic com­bined photovoltaic/ com­bined heat and pow­er (CHP) in the UK and is home to the UK’s first small –scale com­bined heat and power/heat fired chiller sys­tem. Wok­ing bor­ough coun­cil have devel­oped these projects, with Allan Jones at the fore­front, through its public/private joint ener­gy ser­vice com­pa­ny- Thamesway Ener­gy Ltd, again the first of its kind in the UK .The coun­cil is now recog­nised as the most ener­gy effi­cient local author­i­ty in the UK hav­ing achieved-
1. Over 80% CO2 cuts
2. 51% reduc­tion in ener­gy con­sump­tion
3. 44% reduc­tion water con­sump­tion

At the demon­stra­tion the cam­paign­ers hope to high­light the Wok­ing mod­el as an alter­na­tive to nuclear pow­er but they will need to wait and see if they are allowed with­in 100m of the site before this can hap­pen. Only tomor­row will tell.

More Info.

Wok­ing – www.ideascentre.co.uk/download/file?ref=68
Sizewell new build nom­i­na­tion, includ­ing flood map- http://www.nuclearpowersiting.decc.gov.uk/nomination/sizewell
Sizewell Block­aders
http://www.easterncnduk.org/News/size200807.php

——————–

Call for actions on 26 April — the day of Cher­nobyl, against the con­struc­tion of new nuclear pow­er sta­tion in Belarus

A call out for com­mon actions against the con­struc­tion of a new nuclear pow­er sta­tion in Belarus. 26 April the day of Cher­nobyl nuclear acci­dent.
Present-day Belarus is a post sovi­et coun­try, on which ter­ri­to­ry a regime, police state in form and neolib­er­al in essence, for­ti­fied its posi­tion. For already 14 years the coun­try is run by one and the same per­son Alexan­der Lukashenko, a pop­ulist at the begin­ning of his gov­ern­ing and open­ly pur­su­ing anti­so­cial reforms now.
The free­dom of speech, free­dom of the press, free­dom of assem­bly is not about our coun­try. These basic val­ues as well as the polit­i­cal oppo­si­tion are sup­pressed. Peace­ful gath­er­ings dis­per­sions, polit­i­cal tri­als, pre­ven­tive deten­tions all this has become a norm of polit­i­cal prac­tice in Belarus.
A few years ago the rul­ing top start­ed to con­sid­er anoth­er ven­ture­some project the con­struc­tion of a nuclear pow­er sta­tion (NPS). Lukashenko took a deci­sion regard­less of the pub­lic wish­es and com­mon sense. The deci­sion was made with the active sup­port of the inter­na­tion­al nuclear lob­by. The con­struc­tion is to be under­tak­en by a Russ­ian cor­po­ra­tion Rosatom. It is to be held in a seis­mi­cal­ly active zone, in a dozen kilo­me­ters away from Lake Naroch the largest lake in Belarus, which is eco­log­i­cal­ly unique for our coun­try and is a tourists and hol­i­day-mak­ers attrac­tion. On the con­struc­tion will be spent $4 bil­lion, which oth­er­wise could be out­laid for alter­na­tive ener­gy means devel­op­ment.
But the above-list­ed points pale before the fact that Belarus shared 70% of radioac­tive con­t­a­m­i­na­tion after Cher­nobyl nuclear acci­dent. But the gov­ern­ment and the pres­i­dent are absolute­ly not con­cerned about that. They want to cre­ate a delayed-action bomb in the coun­try, where one third of the ter­ri­to­ry is unfit for farm­ing and berries/mushrooms gath­er­ing.
We, Anti­nu­clear resis­tance, an anar­chy group, come out against nuclear pow­er engi­neer­ing on the whole and against the NPS con­struc­tion specif­i­cal­ly in Belarus. A part of polit­i­cal forces in Belarus, includ­ing oppo­si­tion, sup­port­ed the NPS con­struc­tion. Unlike them we do not believe in NPS safe­ty irre­spec­tive of the polit­i­cal regime, with­in which it is func­tion­ing and being con­struct­ed. Our activ­i­ty is based upon non-author­i­tar­i­an prin­ci­ples, we do not coop­er­ate with any polit­i­cal par­ties on a reg­u­lar base, but with eco­log­i­cal orga­ni­za­tions and grass­roots ini­tia­tives.
On 26 April, the anniver­sary of the Cher­nobyl nuclear acci­dent, an annu­al demon­stra­tion Charnobyl­s­ki Shlah (The Cher­nobyl Path) takes place in com­mem­o­ra­tion of the acci­dent and the peo­ple who fell the imme­di­ate and lin­ger­ing vic­tims of it. Start­ing with the year of 1996 anar­chists take part in the demo with eco­log­i­cal and anti­nu­clear slo­gans. But nowa­days the demon­stra­tion, instead of just mourn­ing and com­mem­o­ra­tive event, is gain­ing a protest mood: in the coun­try, where dozens of thou­sands peo­ple have died as a result of the nuclear acci­dent after­maths and hun­dreds of thou­sands have acquired acci­dent-caused ill­ness­es or become hand­i­capped, a new NPS is to be con­struct­ed! And that is done accord­ing to the com­mon reg­u­la­tions of an author­i­tar­i­an police state not ask­ing the peo­ples opin­ion, but just con­fronting them with the fact.
On 26 April we will again take a most active part in the Charnobyl­s­ki Shlah (The Cher­nobyl Path), well try to pass along to every­one our clear anti­nu­clear posi­tion, will inform as many peo­ple as pos­si­ble of the approach­ing dan­ger. But now it is not enough! As an instru­ment of strug­gle against the state law­less­ness we rely on the inter­na­tion­al sup­port. We urge envi­ron­men­tal­ists and anti­au­thor­i­tar­i­ans of the world to car­ry out sol­i­dar­i­ty actions on 26 April 2009. We call for a decen­tral­ized day of action of any form, which could help peo­ple learn some­thing about our prob­lem and stop the impu­dent author­i­ty and their spon­sors from IAEA.
If you already take actions on 26 April on your local prob­lems con­cern­ing nuclear pow­er engi­neer­ing, please put on your list the demand for abo­li­tion of the NSP con­struc­tion in Belarus. You are also wel­come to par­tic­i­pate in The Cher­nobyl Path in Min­sk and oth­er actions in Belarus.
Togeth­er we will be able to stand up for the right for life on a clean and eco­log­i­cal­ly safe plan­et!
If you have any inten­tion to make sol­i­dar­i­ty actions with the Belaruss­ian anti­nu­clear move­ment or par­tic­i­pate in the demon­stra­tion in Belarus please con­tact us:
antiatombel@riseup.net
Spread out the call out through any acces­si­ble for you infor­ma­tion chan­nels

CALL OUT: Resist the bailiffs at Justice Not Crisis Birmingham squat

At 0900 hours on Tues­day 21st April 2009 bailiffs will attempt to evict mem­bers of Jus­tice Not Cri­sis from 310, 312, 314 and 318 Per­shore Road, fol­lowed imme­di­ate­ly after at 11AM, an attempt­ed evic­tion at the Beech­wood Hotel, Bris­tol Road.

At 0900 hours on Tues­day 21st April 2009 bailiffs will attempt to evict mem­bers of Jus­tice Not Cri­sis from 310, 312, 314 and 318 Per­shore Road, fol­lowed imme­di­ate­ly after at 11AM, an attempt­ed evic­tion at the Beech­wood Hotel, Bris­tol Road.

We intend to resist evic­tions at all five prop­er­ties and will stage a roof-top demon­stra­tion at the Beech­wood Hotel. We require as much sup­port and assis­tance as pos­si­ble, and a brief­ing will take place at the Beech­wood Hotel at 0800 hours on Tues­day 21st April. Press and media have already indi­cat­ed they will be attend­ing the Beech­wood to cov­er our resis­tance of the bailiffs’ evic­tion.

Any­one wish­ing to join us this evening/night for our bar­be­cue and drink is wel­come. Rooms will be avail­able for any­body wish­ing to stay. Fur­ther infor­ma­tion can be obtained on 07874180014

Updates to the days events will appear on our web­site through­out the day Tues­day 21st April.

Recent actions at Tara, Eire

planned action went ahead on mon­day 20.4.09 at the ard­sal­lagh bridge project at the boyne… pro­tes­tors entered site imme­di­at­ly stop­ping all work but this did not last for long as with­in only five min­utes the guards and nine jeeps from M3 work­ers had arrived on site. it was a total set up.

Standing on a dumper-truck at Taraplanned action went ahead on mon­day 20.4.09 at the ard­sal­lagh bridge project at the boyne… pro­tes­tors entered site imme­di­at­ly stop­ping all work but this did not last for long as with­in only five min­utes the guards and nine jeeps from M3 work­ers had arrived on site. it was a total set up. per­haps this is proof of phone mon­i­tor­ing. pro­tes­tors retreat­ed to the pub­lic road where a block­ade sit­u­a­tion quick­ly unfold­ed. this stand off last­ed well in excess of an hour as M3 work­ers had gar­dai inves­ti­gate some ‘bent steel’ all activists were ques­tioned all names were tak­en, mean­while M3 work­ers con­tin­ue to block pub­lic road infu­ri­at­ing locals. after all was said and done the guards escort­ed us back to the hill and wait­ed in the carpark at maguires eat­ing the tara spe­cial…

enjoy the video

——–

Fan­cy dress dig­ger-div­ing, 25.3.09 — video

——–

Action 3.3.09 video

——–


action 12.2.09
THE NEXT DAY OF ACTION for Tara, this wednes­day 18th feb. Meet­ing tues­day night
at Vig­il Farm, for actions ear­ly and all day wednes­day.
Come pre­pared — bring sleep­ing bag, torch, water­proof warm clothes, cam­eras,
ban­ners, cos­tumes, musi­cal instru­ments etc etc

*All wel­come, please tell lit­er­al­ly every­one. Protests can­not con­tin­ue
unless we have the num­bers to sup­port us.
*
If you can­not make it on wednes­day but would like to help out, we need help
with:
Press releas­es
Ban­ner mak­ing mate­ri­als
Cam­eras
Food
Any­thing else you thing that could be help­ful!
Tara is call­ing, the days are get­ting longer and warmer. Protest­ing is
great cra­ic, it’s nev­er to late for TARA
——–

Video of dan­ger­ous dig­ger-div­ing action, 29.1.09

Protests continue…see youtube for more past actions…

Blue NG offices in Bath occupied by 13 members of Action Against Agrofuels (AAA)

AAA occu­pied Blue NG offices on Fri­day 17th, Via Campesina Day, in sol­i­dar­i­ty with mil­lions of peas­ant land-work­ers demon­strat­ing glob­al­ly against agro­fu­els.

Blue NG protestAAA occu­pied Blue NG offices on Fri­day 17th, Via Campesina Day, in sol­i­dar­i­ty with mil­lions of peas­ant land-work­ers demon­strat­ing glob­al­ly against agro­fu­els. Blue NG are com­mit­ting a crime against human­i­ty and the plan­et by using mis­in­for­ma­tion* to win sup­port for the new mar­ket of agro­fu­el pow­er sta­tions, when vir­tu­al­ly all agro­fu­els have been shown to cause ecosys­tem destruc­tion, accel­er­at­ed cli­mate change & food pover­ty.

* For more on Blue-NG mis­in­for­ma­tion see…
http://sites.google.com/site/foodnotfuelorg/Home/facts-on-biofuels/biofuels-for-electricity/BlueNGinconsistenciesApril2009.doc?attredirects=0

On 17th April 2009 13 cli­mate and social jus­tice activists occu­pied the head office of Blue NG, the com­pa­ny which is plan­ning to build the UK’s first bio­fu­el pow­er plants. Ban­ners were hung from the build­ing and activists demand­ed that the com­pa­ny stops invest­ing in bio­fu­els.

Blu­eNG ini­tial­ly plans eight pow­er plants which would run on vir­gin veg­etable oil. Cam­paign­ers warn that those pow­er plants will sig­nif­i­cant­ly boost the UK’s imports of palm oil, which is linked to defor­esta­tion and the dis­place­ment of rur­al com­mu­ni­ties, includ­ing indige­nous peo­ples. Blue NG speaks about using rape­seed oil but has failed to rule out using palm oil. In Ger­many, 1.3 bil­lion kWh of ener­gy are pro­duced from palm oil burn­ing because this is the cheap­est veg­etable oil and Ger­man providers have found it impos­si­ble to afford rape­seed oil.

STATEMENT:

We are here to demand that you stop invest­ing in agro­fu­els. We need tru­ly renew­able ener­gy but call­ing pes­ti­cide-sprayed mono­cul­tures for bio­fu­els renew­able is obscene.

Already, small farm­ers and indige­nous peo­ples are being evict­ed, far more peo­ple are going hun­gry and ever more forests and oth­er diverse ecosys­tems are being destroyed in order to grow fuel for our cars. While hun­dreds of civ­il soci­ety groups and insti­tu­tions, includ­ing he Euro­pean Envi­ron­ment Agency, our Envi­ron­men­tal Audit Com­mit­tee, the UN Rap­por­teur for the Right of Food and even the OECD were against Europe’s bio­fu­el tar­gets for trans­port, your com­pa­ny was draw­ing up plans to fur­ther push up an already com­plete­ly unsus­tain­able demand for bio­fu­els.

Soon after sci­en­tists pub­lished stud­ies which unequiv­o­cal­ly show that today’s agro­fu­els are dis­as­ter for the cli­mate and that using land for agro­fu­els means less ecosys­tems and less food, you pub­lished your plans to build the first veg­etable oil pow­er plant in Beck­ton. It so hap­pens that, in Beck­ton, asth­ma lev­els are already excep­tion­al­ly high, almost cer­tain­ly due to air pol­lu­tion.

You then made false and mis­lead­ing claims to gar­ner polit­i­cal sup­port for those destruc­tive plans. Many peo­ple liked what you said about com­bin­ing geo-pres­sure and com­bined heat and pow­er, yet your two pub­lished plan­ning appli­ca­tions involve nei­ther – as for CHP, you don’t even plan to sup­ply heat to prop­er­ties or indus­try. But even if those claims had not been false, the ener­gy will still come from one of the most destruc­tive and cli­mate-dam­ag­ing types of fuel.

You con­tin­ue to make false state­ments about the fuel you will use. You tell media reporters you have a sus­tain­able sourc­ing agree­ment – yet the par­ty you claim to have that agree­ment with knows noth­ing about it. Just this month, you pub­lished claims that you could pow­er your plants from half a mil­lion hectares of set aside land in the UK and that this would be cli­mate-friend­ly. This is absurd – as any­body in the indus­try must know, most of that set aside land has already been ploughed up in what even Defra fears is a dis­as­ter for our bio­di­ver­si­ty. And far from being cli­mate-friend­ly, rape­seed oil is grown with so many fer­tilis­ers that it’s up to 70% worse for the cli­mate than fos­sil fuel oil.

Your bio­mass pol­i­cy boasts that you will min­imise indi­rect impacts. Not sur­pris­ing­ly, you haven’t told any­body just how you plan to do that – after all nobody else has come up with any cred­i­ble ideas for this either. Except for one study which makes it clear that the only way that could be done was by mak­ing sure less food was grown and more peo­ple went hun­gry. Is this what you mean when you say “If we are going to be suc­cess­ful in our fight against cli­mate change in the con­text of an eco­nom­ic down­turn and ris­ing ener­gy and food prices, we have to make some hard choic­es.”? Though the only suc­cess this project might bring is prof­its, no oth­er ben­e­fits.

And final­ly, the rea­son we are here on this par­tic­u­lar day is that we wish to sup­port the Inter­na­tion­al Day of Action called by Via Campesina, in mem­o­ry of land­less farm­ers killed in Brazil on the same day in 1996. Via Campesina and many oth­er groups right­ly demand poli­cies which sup­port food sov­er­eign­ty, not mono­cul­tures to grow fuel for Europe, and rights and sup­port for small farm­ers and for bio­di­verse, organ­ic farm­ing which tru­ly helps to counter cli­mate change. Bio­fu­el com­pa­nies like Blue NG are under­min­ing our hopes for an agri­cul­ture sys­tem which can feed peo­ple, reduce cli­mate change, safe­guard bio­di­ver­si­ty and sup­port com­mu­ni­ties’ rights and liveli­hoods. Your choic­es are your respon­si­bil­i­ty and we demand that you stop all sup­port for agro­fu­els. We will not stop cam­paign­ing until you stop your sup­port for agro­fu­els.