Demonstrators target Graff Diamonds in Solidarity with Kahlahari Bushmen (11.2.09)

Survival’s cam­paign tar­get­ing Graff Dia­monds over its involve­ment in a dia­mond mine planned on the land of Kala­hari Bush­men in Botswana has stepped up a gear.

Bushmen Demo- London 11.2.09Survival’s cam­paign tar­get­ing Graff Dia­monds over its involve­ment in a dia­mond mine planned on the land of Kala­hari Bush­men in Botswana has stepped up a gear. Thir­ty pro­test­ers gath­ered on the 11.2.09 out­side Graff’s flag­ship Lon­don store hold­ing plac­ards say­ing ‘Boy­cott Graff’ and ‘Botswana dia­monds: Bush­men despair’.

The store is based in the fash­ion epi­cen­tre of Lon­don sur­round­ed by shops from Yves San Lau­ren, Chanel etc. The dia­mond indus­tries main prod­uct is high image and thus has shown itself to be some­times more sus­cep­ti­ble to pres­sure than oth­er resource sec­tors such as min­ing and oil. Pre­vi­ous pick­ets by Sur­vival Inter­na­tion­al and pub­lic sham­ing of fash­ion hous­es and top mod­els result­ed in De Beers pulling out of the planned dia­mond min­ing in the Kala­hari.

There are 100,000 Bush­men in Botswana, Namib­ia, South Africa and Ango­la. They are the indige­nous peo­ple of south­ern Africa, and have lived there for tens of thou­sands of years.

In the mid­dle of Botswana lies the Cen­tral Kala­hari Game Reserve, a reserve cre­at­ed both to pro­tect the tra­di­tion­al ter­ri­to­ry of the 5,000 Gana, Gwi and Tsi­la Bush­men (and their neigh­bours the Bak­gala­ga­di), and the wildlife and ecosys­tem of which are a part.

In the ear­ly 1980s, dia­monds were dis­cov­ered in the reserve. Soon after, gov­ern­ment min­is­ters went into the reserve to tell the Bush­men liv­ing there that they would have to leave because of the dia­mond finds.

In three big clear­ances, in 1997, 2002 and 2005, vir­tu­al­ly all the Bush­men were forced out. Their homes were dis­man­tled, their school and health post were closed, their water sup­ply was destroyed and the peo­ple were threat­ened and trucked away.

They now live in reset­tle­ment camps out­side the reserve. Rarely able to hunt, and arrest­ed and beat­en when they do, they are depen­dent on gov­ern­ment hand­outs. They are now gripped by alco­holism, bore­dom, depres­sion, and ill­ness­es such as TB and HIV/AIDS.

Unless they can return to their ances­tral lands, their unique soci­eties and way of life will be destroyed, and many of them will die.

Although the Bush­men won the right in court to go back to their lands in 2006, the gov­ern­ment has done every­thing it can to make their return impos­si­ble. It has:

Banned them from using their water bore­hole,
Refused to issue a sin­gle per­mit to hunt on their land (despite Botswana’s High Court rul­ing in Decem­ber that its refusal to issue per­mits was unlaw­ful),
Arrest­ed more than 50 Bush­men for hunt­ing to feed their fam­i­lies,
Banned them from tak­ing their small herds of goats back to the reserve.

Its pol­i­cy is clear­ly to intim­i­date and fright­en the Bush­men into stay­ing in the reset­tle­ment camps, and mak­ing the lives of those who have gone back to their ances­tral land impos­si­ble.

More infor­ma­tion on the Kala­hari Bush­men can be found on their own web­site : www.iwant2gohome.org or the web­site of Sur­vival Inter­na­tion­al (which is updat­ed more often): www.survival-international.org/tribes/bushmen

Plane Stupid activists accuse Ed Milliband of plane hypocracy

12th Febu­rary 2008

Miliband interrupted12th Febu­rary 2008
Plane Stu­pid Brighton Activists have inter­rupt­ed a pub­lic meet­ing dur­ing a speech by Ed Miliband MP, Sec­re­tary of State for Ener­gy and Cli­mate Change, unveil­ing a ban­ner high­light­ing the hyp­o­crit­i­cal actions of the gov­ern­ment in rela­tion to avi­a­tion and cli­mate change. The action expos­es the con­tra­dic­tion between the gov­ern­men­t’s stat­ed aim to cut 80% of CO2 emis­sions by 2050 and their plans to mas­sive­ly expand the avi­a­tion sec­tor in the UK. The ban­ner accus­es the gov­ern­ment of becom­ing a “Hypoc­ra­cy” — a democ­ra­cy gov­erned by hyp­ocrites.

The Plane Stu­pid activists dressed in t‑shirts read­ing ‘Ed’s Pop­u­lar Mobi­liza­tion Team’ refer­ring to Miliband’s call late last year for ‘Pop­u­lar Mobi­liza­tion’ on the issue of Cli­mate Change[2]. Fly­ers list­ing the 34 air­ports planned for expan­sion with­in the UK[1] were hand­ed out to the audi­ence, demon­strat­ing the appar­ent lack of gov­ern­ment resolve for tack­ling the envi­ron­men­tal issues that are cru­cial for safe-guard­ing our future. Demon­strat­ing their dis­ap­proval of the gov­ern­ments un-demo­c­ra­t­ic pan­der­ing to cor­po­rate inter­ests, the audi­ence made paper aero­planes, which took flight in the direc­tion of Ed Miliband.

“It is all very well for Ed Miliband to request the pub­lic to take action but it is time for the gov­ern­ment to pro­vide real lead­er­ship in tack­ling cli­mate change.” Said Lar­ry from Plane Stu­pid, “pass­ing the buck is not an option if we are to avoid the chaos and loss of life Cli­mate Change is pre­dict­ed to bring.” The activists feel that their actions demon­strate their will­ing­ness to take respon­si­bil­i­ty in mobil­is­ing around the issue of Cli­mate Change, and expect the gov­ern­ment to sim­i­lar­ly accom­pa­ny their rhetoric with strong action.

“The gov­ern­men­t’s far­ci­cal plans for air­port expan­sion are incom­pat­i­ble with meet­ing the required tar­gets for pre­vent­ing run­away cli­mate change. We are engag­ing with the demo­c­ra­t­ic process in every way we know how, but at the same time the gov­ern­ment has hyp­o­crit­i­cal­ly sup­port­ed con­tin­ued air­port expan­sion.” Said Clare, one of the activists Brighton Plane Stu­pid.

Last year Ed Miliband cham­pi­oned the Cli­mate Change Bill, yet in Jan­u­ary he under­mined this by sup­port­ing a Third Run­way at Heathrow. The actions of Plane Stu­pid at this meet­ing high­light the incom­pat­i­bil­i­ty of these two posi­tions, and chal­lenge not only Ed Miliband but the Labour gov­ern­ment in gen­er­al to be held account­able for their com­mit­ments. Their actions sim­i­lar­ly chal­lenge Nan­cy Platt, Labour Par­ty can­di­date, who will poten­tial­ly per­pet­u­ate this style of gov­ern­ment which is so full of promis­es, and yet so devoid of con­vic­tion. The demo­c­ra­t­ic struc­tures in place have been wor­ry­ing­ly bypassed not only dur­ing the gov­ern­men­t’s deci­sion on Heathrow, but also on Stanst­ed’s sec­ond run­way; where BAA has had more say than both local coun­cils and respect­ed sci­en­tif­ic orga­ni­za­tions, who oppose the planned expan­sions. There is a con­cern that these rigged con­sul­ta­tion pro­ce­dures may become com­mon­place, and this is what the activists do not want.

Brighton Plane Stu­pid activist Lucy stat­ed “Any­one with as much access to sci­ence as Ed Miliband knows that the avi­a­tion indus­try can­not con­tin­ue to expand. Miliband and a host of oth­er MP’s have failed us on Heathrow, prov­ing their words to be as reli­able as quick­sand, the glob­al envi­ron­men­tal sit­u­a­tion does not allow us enough time to see this track record of deceit and hypocrisy grow”.

Mr Mil­liband was inter­rupt­ed but not obstruct­ed from mak­ing his speech in sup­port of the Labour Par­ty can­di­date Nan­cy Platt at the Brighthelm Cen­tre in Brighton.

Ends

———————————————————————————————————————————————

[1] Tak­en from the Gov­ern­men­t’s White Paper ‘The Future of Air Trans­port’ Decen­m­ber 2003
http://www.dft.gov.uk/about/strategy/whitepapers/air/utureofairtransportwhite5694.pdf
Accessed Feb 1 2009

[2] http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/labour/3681149/Ed-Miliband-urges-popular-mobilisation-to-tackle-climate-change.html
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/dec/08/ed-miliband-climate-politics-environment
Accessed Feb 1 2009

Philippines: with 5 Members Missing, the Mamanwa Hold Strong

Feb­ru­ary 12, 2009
At least 400 mem­bers of the Maman­wa tribe in Suri­gao del Sur, north­west­ern Min­danao, are in their sec­ond week of a block­ade against four min­ing com­pa­nies: Tagan­i­to Min­ing Cor­po­ra­tion (TMC), Ori­en­tal Syn­er­gy Min­ing Cor­po­ra­tion (OSMC), Case Min­ing Com­pa­ny (CMC) and Plat­inum Group Min­ing Com­pa­ny (PGMC).

Feb­ru­ary 12, 2009
At least 400 mem­bers of the Maman­wa tribe in Suri­gao del Sur, north­west­ern Min­danao, are in their sec­ond week of a block­ade against four min­ing com­pa­nies: Tagan­i­to Min­ing Cor­po­ra­tion (TMC), Ori­en­tal Syn­er­gy Min­ing Cor­po­ra­tion (OSMC), Case Min­ing Com­pa­ny (CMC) and Plat­inum Group Min­ing Com­pa­ny (PGMC).

The Maman­wa pre­vi­ous­ly sent notices of ter­mi­na­tion to the com­pa­nies, inform­ing them that they will longer be per­mit­ted to mine their ances­tral ter­ri­to­ries because the com­pa­nies have nev­er paid them any roy­al­ty fees.

Under the Indige­nous Peo­ples Rights Act (IPRA), Indige­nous Peo­ple in the Philip­pines are enti­tled to “a roy­al­ty pay­ment… which shall not be less than 1% of the Gross Out­put of the min­ing oper­a­tions in the area.”

Only recent­ly has the Maman­wa learned of this.

In a state­ment dat­ed Feb­ru­ary 4, day sev­en of the bar­ri­cade, Datu Joel Buk­las from the Tagan­i­to Maman­wa Asso­ci­a­tion, notes that TMC has been oper­at­ing in the region since the 1960s, and recent­ly “got a new con­tract to oper­ate for anoth­er 25 years in the red moun­tain of Suri­gao del Sur.”

“The mov­ing truck loads of nick­el ore is a reg­u­lar scene for motorist pass­ing along the Claver high­way.”

“Lit­er­al­ly, the red moun­tain of Claver is mov­ing inch by inch every day. Sum­it­o­mo Met­al Min­ing Com­pa­ny togeth­er with TMC planned to start this year the con­struc­tion of a 30,000 ton-a-year smelt­ing plant which would start its oper­a­tion by 2012.” Mean­while, Sum­it­o­mo is “deter­mined to start the con­struc­tion this year of the one-bil­lion dol­lar project.”

“This is our land even before these min­ing com­pa­nies came, we were already here, we were forcibly oust­ed from these lands against our will and we hope con­cerned gov­ern­ment agen­cies whom we have been ask­ing for years will wake up.”

“Today, 4 Feb­ru­ary 2009, is our sev­enth day of human bar­ri­cade along the high­way of Tagan­i­to, Claver, Suri­gao del Norte to demand before the Nation­al Com­mis­sion on Indige­nous Peo­ples (NCIP) on our share agreed for allow­ing the min­ing com­pa­nies to ruin our lives and our ances­tral domain.”
SURFACE THE MAMANWA FIVE

With the block­ade still stand­ing, the Maman­wa report that five of their car­pen­ters, who helped put the block­ade togeth­er, have been miss­ing since they left the site to har­vest food for the pro­test­ers on Jan­u­ary 29.

Nobody knows what hap­pened to them, how­ev­er the Maman­wa point out that in Decem­ber they informed the Philip­pine Nation­al Police, the local gov­ern­ment and the NCIP that a block­ade was in the works – “after repeat­ed attempts of send­ing out notices of ter­mi­na­tion of min­ing oper­a­tions as well as demands for just com­pen­sa­tion proved futile,” says a Feb­ru­ary 12 state­ment from the Legal Rights and Nat­ur­al Resources Cen­ter – Kasama sa Kalikasan/­FOE- Philip­pines (LRC-KsK).

The LRC-KsK is call­ing upon the Arroyo gov­ern­ment “to exert all its efforts in locat­ing the five IP pro­test­ers and put to jus­tice who­ev­er caused their dis­ap­pear­ance,” and that “the Arroyo gov­ern­ment do away with its obses­sion for min­ing gen­er­at­ed rev­enues in the face of over­whelm­ing rejec­tion of IP com­mu­ni­ties who have long borne the brunt of the destruc­tion, dis­place­ment, dis­crim­i­na­tion and dis­em­pow­er­ment that min­ing oper­a­tions bring with it.”

They also request that peo­ple take a moment to Call on the gov­ern­ment:

* To sur­face the five miss­ing Maman­was;
* To respect and pro­tect the bar­ri­cade of the Mamanwt;
* To scrap the Philip­pine Min­ing Act of 1995; and
* To make sure that min­ing com­pa­nies in Maman­wa ances­tral domain respect indige­nous peo­ples rights, give just com­pen­sa­tion to the Maman­wa com­mu­ni­ty and stop all min­ing oper­a­tion.

You can send your appeals to:

The Chief of Police
Chief Direc­tor Gen­er­al Jesus Ver­zosa
Philip­pine Nation­al Police
Email: pio@pnp.gov

The Chief of Staff (Armed Forces)
Gen. Alexan­der B. Yano
Chief of Staff, Armed Forces of the Philip­pines
Email: via web­site: http://www.afp.mil.ph/ghq/csafp/index.htm (fol­low link on left-hand side to guest­book)

The Sec­re­tary of the Depart­ment of Envi­ron­ment and Nat­ur­al Resources
Jose “Lito” L. Atien­za, Jr
Email: web@denr.gov
Email add: osec@denr.gov

The Mines and Gosciences Bureau Region­al Direc­tor – Region 13
ALILO C. ENSOMO, JR.
e‑mail: mgbrxiii@philcom. ph

With copies to:

The Chair­per­son of the Philip­pines Com­mis­sion on Human Rights
Email: drpvq@chr.gov, atty_delima@yahoo.com

The Chair­per­son of the Nation­al Com­mis­sion on Indige­nous Peo­ples
Atty. Euge­nio A. Insigne
Email: resource@ncip. gov.ph

“Car-lofts” attacked, porsche, bmw & upperclass cars torched, Germany

07/02/09: Attempt­ed arson on cars
01/02/09: „Car-Lofts“ attacked with stones and col­or
31/01/09: Again two arsons against upper­class cars
30/01/09: Porsche torched
28/01/09: BMW burned

Direct Action: 27th Jan-7th FebDirect Action: 27th Jan-7th Feb07/02/09: Attempt­ed arson on cars
01/02/09: „Car-Lofts“ attacked with stones and col­or
31/01/09: Again two arsons against upper­class cars
30/01/09: Porsche torched
28/01/09: BMW burned
27/01/09: Again a car burned in Berlin: state secu­ri­ty inves­ti­gates

Attempt­ed arson on cars

Berlin, 7 of Feb­ru­ary 2009
Unknown per­sons tried again to burn sev­er­al cars in Kreuzberg.
The fire device, placed under a car in the Sebas­tianstraße, could be stopped by pass­er-byers, declared the police.
One found three device more under three oth­er cars which did not burn.

Source: Mor­gen­post

——————————-

„Car-Lofts“ attacked with stones and col­or

Berlin, 1 of Feb­ru­ary 2009
Unknown authors demol­ished the win­dows of a build­ing in Kreuzberg.
After the first inves­ti­ga­tions, one attack must have hap­pened already in the night to Sat­ur­day, with bot­tles full of col­or.
Since a polit­i­cal moti­va­tion can not be exclud­ed, state secu­ri­ty inves­ti­gates.

Source: Polizei Tick­er

note for eng­lish-speak­ing read­er: the build­ing is the noto­ri­ous „car-lofts“, a yup­pie project build­ed in Kreuzberg, vic­tim of sev­er­al mil­i­tant attacks since its begin­ning.

——————————-

Again two arsons against upper­class cars

Berlin, 31 of Jan­u­ary 2009

Arson­ists under­took again two arsons on upper­class cars in Friedrichshain and Pren­zlauer­berg.
Police­men could pre­vent high­er dam­ages on a BMW, by extin­guish­ing the fire with antifire pow­der they had with them.
A Mer­cedes CLK got instead com­plete­ly dam­aged.
Already 26 cars have been burned fol­low­ing 18 arsons attacks under­tak­en by unknown per­sons.

Source: Mor­gen­post

——————————-

Porsche torched

Berlin, 30 of Jan­u­ary 2009

On fri­day morn­ing peo­ple torched anoth­er cars, prob­a­bly out of polit­i­cal rea­sons.
This was a Porsche Cayenne parked in the Choriner­straße cor­ner Zehdenick­er­straße, Mitte.
Pass­er-byers noticed the flames and alarmed the fire brigade.
The car got com­plet­ly dam­aged, state secu­ri­ty inves­ti­gates.

Source: Mor­gen­post

——————————-

BMW burned

Berlin, 28 of Jan­u­ary 2009

A car got burned today ear­ly in the morn­ing in Mitte.
Inhab­i­tants noticed a „BMW“ going on fire in the Fehrber­lin­er­straße around 3.30am and called the fire brigade.
A car parked next to it got also dam­aged.
Since a polit­i­cal moti­va­tion is not exclud­ed, state secu­ri­ty inves­ti­gates.

Source: Polizei Pressemel­dung

——————————-

Again a car burned in Berlin: state secu­ri­ty inves­ti­gates

Berlin, 27 of Jan­u­ary 2009

In Berlin anoth­er car got set on fire, prob­a­bly out of polit­i­cal rea­sons.
An inhab­i­tant dis­cov­ered the fire in the Net­zes­traße, Neukölln, in the ear­ly hours of tues­day and called the fire brigade, as the police reports.
It is already the num­ber 22 car burned in Berlin this year.

——————————-

direct action news from greece
http://directactionde.blogspot.com

spike social centre eviction in progress — London

12.2.2009 9am
the spike sur­plus scheme of 39b con­sort road, peck­ham, Lon­don is being eve­ict­ed as we speak. bailiffs, cops, pcsos and “com­mu­ni­ty war­dens” are on site.

12.2.2009 9am
the spike sur­plus scheme of 39b con­sort road, peck­ham, Lon­don is being eve­ict­ed as we speak. bailiffs, cops, pcsos and “com­mu­ni­ty war­dens” are on site.

after a ten year project in the build­ing which has been in com­mu­ni­ty use for 150 years, the prop­er­ty divi­sion of sout­wark coun­cil have decid­ed to end the project. though they promised to give notice to clear the projects equip­ment before evic­tion, south­wark coun­cil gave instruc­tions to get a spe­cial court order so as not to give any notice at all.

Jere­my pil­grim of the south­wark coun­cil lead the police oper­a­tion, vis­it­ing the project for the first time this morn­ing after many pre­vi­ous invites to vis­it the com­mu­ni­ty cen­tre.

peo­ple have been told to liase with bailiffs in order to col­lect the thou­sands of pounds worth of equip­ment still there.

www.spikesurplus.org

www.myspace.com/spikesurplus

Manchester students occupy roof of Royal Bank of Scotland

Around 35 stu­dents held a cli­mate change ‘Evic­tion Demon­stra­tion’ out­side (and on top of) a Roy­al Bank of Scot­land branch at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Man­ches­ter Stu­dents Union on Wednes­day 11th Feb­ru­ary 2009.

Evict RBS flyerEvict RBS rooftop demoAround 35 stu­dents held a cli­mate change ‘Evic­tion Demon­stra­tion’ out­side (and on top of) a Roy­al Bank of Scot­land branch at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Man­ches­ter Stu­dents Union on Wednes­day 11th Feb­ru­ary 2009. The group from Peo­ple and Plan­et have sub­mit­ted a motion to the Union Gen­er­al Meet­ing propos­ing that the Union does not renew the lease for RBS’ branch when it expires in Jan­u­ary 2010.

The demo began on the steps of the Stu­dent Union at noon. RBS had hired in extra secu­ri­ty, and the cam­pus cops were sniff­ing around. So a group went to the front of the RBS and talked loud­ly of their plans for ‘rapid infor­ma­tion dessim­i­na­tion’.

Whilst this dis­trac­tion ensued, tieing up secu­ri­ty, a sec­ond group snuck round the back and climbed aboard the roof. From here they dropped ban­ners adver­tis­ing RBS’ fos­sil fuel invest­ments and adver­tis­ing the Union gen­er­al meet­ing the fol­low­ing week.

Mean­while the rapid infor­ma­tion dessim­i­na­tion went ahead with every­one rac­ing off to speak to as many peo­ple as they could in 20 min­utes before return­ing back to the RBS branch to com­pare scores.

The Roy­al Bank of Scot­land pro­vid­ed $16 bil­lion for coal com­pa­nies and explo­ration projects from May 2006 to April 2008. This has includ­ed some of the dirt­i­est and most dan­ger­ous oil and gas projects includ­ing the Baku-Cey­han pipeline in Tib­lisi, Geor­gia which has been crit­i­cised by Amnesty, WWF, and Friends of the Earth for its human rights and pol­lu­tion impacts. The embed­ded emis­sions from RBS loans total more than those of the whole of Scot­land.

Toby Brett, 19, Physics Stu­dent at Man­ches­ter Uni­ver­si­ty says; “We hope to send a clear mes­sage to RBS that if they con­tin­ue with their irre­spon­si­ble invest­ments then they will not be wel­come to rent branch space from our stu­dent union.”

This action was part of a wider nation­al cam­paign call­ing for a boy­cott on RBS in Sep­tem­ber 2009.

Man­ches­ter Peo­ple and Plan­et have pre­vi­ous­ly staged a flash­mob protest against RBS at a Uni­ver­si­ty recruit­ment event
(http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/21650)

And award­ed RBS a spoof green­wash award at their region­al head­quar­ters in Deans­gate.
(http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/21907)

For more detail on RBS’ cli­mate crimes please vis­it:
www.peopleandplanet.org/ditchdirtydevelopment
www.oyalbankofscotland.com

squat eviction & resistance in the South West

ille­gal evic­tion of squat in Bath
On Mon­day the 9th Feb­ru­ary, at 2.15pm, British Trans­port Police & Bath con­stab­u­lary con­spired to com­mit an ille­gal evic­tion of a new short-lived squat on the edge of Twer­ton, in Bath.

squat logo 13ille­gal evic­tion of squat in Bath
On Mon­day the 9th Feb­ru­ary, at 2.15pm, British Trans­port Police & Bath con­stab­u­lary con­spired to com­mit an ille­gal evic­tion of a new short-lived squat on the edge of Twer­ton, in Bath.

The for­mer Twer­ton-on-Avon rail­way sta­tion fell out of use in 1917, and was briefly the site of Androm­e­da Gar­den­ing Ser­vices owned by R. Pot­ter. R. Pot­ter was arrest­ed and found guilty of a huge can­nibis grow­ing oper­a­tion in the loft of the build­ing in 2003, and was believed to have been forced to sell the prop­er­ty to pay off the fine. The build­ing was lat­er occu­pied by Euro­pean squat­ters in 2006 & 2007, whom the local res­i­dents mis­tak­en­ly assumed were the can­nibis deal­ers. Con­tend­ing with that and con­fus­ing the issue, Net­work Rail also claimed squat­ters’ rights to the build­ing, and their twelve years’ were due to be up in August 2008, except for the inter­ven­tion of our Euro­pean friends.

A sec­ond gen­er­a­tion of squat­ters moved in on Fri­day the 6th of Feb­ru­ary, last week, through a dam­aged door­way and prompt­ly went about doing up their love­ly new 4‑storey home, con­tent in the knowl­edge that they were the new tem­po­rary own­ers.

The author­i­ties had oth­er ideas though, with BTP com­mit­ting crim­i­nal dam­age destroy­ing one of the pad­locks, crim­i­nal­ly break­ing and enter­ing as they boot­ed their way through the door, and then tres­pass­ing as they spread through the build­ing, ignor­ing the Sec­tion 6 notice that the occu­pi­er read out to them as they car­ried on their crime wave. Offi­cer 1306 par­tic­u­lar­ly of British Trans­port Police take note. They were alleged­ly act­ing off knowl­edge from a near­by prop­er­ty also rent­ing from Net­work Rail (were they fraud­u­lent­ly pre­tend­ing to be the own­er of that prop­er­ty, too, one won­ders?) who report­ed sus­pi­cious squat­ter-types enter­ing and leav­ing the build­ing — so police also broke their own rules on reveal­ing wit­ness­es. They then hand­ed over the occu­pi­er to Bath Con­stab­u­lary, who held him for a fur­ther 8 hours.

Bath Police did­n’t care about the fact that Net­work Rail aren’t the legal own­ers of the con­test­ed build­ing, and nei­ther did they care about the gui­dle­lines set down in PACE where they are oblig­ed to sup­ply inmates with writ­ing mate­ri­als, or food in sealed pack­ag­ing, or indeed respond to the sus­pec­t’s cries when hav­ing a claus­tro­pho­bia attack, or indeed offer him access to a solic­i­tor of his choice and repeat­ed­ly refus­ing him access to hsi phone call — though, they even­tu­al­ly caved on that.

It also appears that the police flunked their law exam: they were due to release the per­son with a cau­tion for tres­pass at 21.30 that night, until one of the embar­rassed CPS took their win­dow-lick­ing col­league aside and advised that it’s prob­a­bly best to do some­one for a crime, rather than a civ­il offense. So, cau­tuoned for elec­tric­i­ty extyrac­tion it was.

Also of note is that at no point was a legal warn­ing giv­en, nor a war­rant pro­duced. The offend­ing bad cop screwed up the Sec­tion 6 and shoved it in his pock­et with a scowl.

Good old Bath police.

But for read­ers out there, the prop­er­ty is still own­er­less and ripe for the tak­ing. And remem­ber: an attack one is an attack on all.

Don’t let ’em rot…

——-

ille­gal evic­tion avert­ed in Bris­tol

Feb­ru­ary 3, 2009
police soon change their tune…

About 1.30pm this after­noon a squat in eas­t­on was a tar­get of ille­gal evic­tion attempt.

Police, accom­pa­ny­ing the own­ers threat­ened to “kick the door down in half an hour” if the occu­pants did­n’t leave. In about 20 min­utes, around 20 local res­i­dents turned to show their con­cern to what was going on. The Police soon changed their tune, and before you knew it they had spo­ken to the own­ers and things would now pro­ceed through court.

Whaling Opponents Collide at Sea

Sea Shep­herd Crew Remain On Guard Behind the Nis­shin Maru

Sea Shep­herd Oper­a­tion Musashi
Update from the Ross Sea

Feb­ru­ary 7th, 2009
0700 Hours (Syd­ney Time)
1200 Hours (PST) (Feb­ru­ary 5th)
75 Degrees 57 Min­utes South and 164 Degrees 53 Min­utes West

Sea Shepherd rotten butter & collisionSea Shep­herd Crew Remain On Guard Behind the Nis­shin Maru

Sea Shep­herd Oper­a­tion Musashi
Update from the Ross Sea

Feb­ru­ary 7th, 2009
0700 Hours (Syd­ney Time)
1200 Hours (PST) (Feb­ru­ary 5th)
75 Degrees 57 Min­utes South and 164 Degrees 53 Min­utes West
Despite repeat­ed assaults by frus­trat­ed and increas­ing­ly vio­lent Japan­ese whalers, the Sea Shep­herd ship Steve Irwin con­tin­ues to stand guard behind the Japan­ese float­ing abat­toir called the Nis­shin Maru. The three Japan­ese har­poon boats are not in the area but the Sea Shep­herd crew is pre­pared to obstruct them should they return.

The Japan­ese have been accus­ing Sea Shep­herd of try­ing to obstruct their props with ropes yet the whalers have been try­ing to do the same thing to the Sea Shep­herd ship Steve Irwin. They are accus­ing the Sea Shep­herd crew of throw­ing rot­ten but­ter (which the Japan­ese refer to as “acid”) at them yet the whalers are throw­ing golf balls and chunks of met­al at the Steve Irwin crew. In addi­tion, the Japan­ese are blast­ing the Sea Shep­herd crew with water can­nons and Long Range Acousti­cal weapons — a son­ic gun that caus­es dis­ori­en­ta­tion, nau­sea and deaf­ness.

“I find it inter­est­ing that so called experts and politi­cians are quick to con­demn Sea Shep­herd’s tac­tics for uphold­ing con­ser­va­tion law yet say not a word about the esca­lat­ing phys­i­cal vio­lence direct­ed at us by the whalers who are break­ing the law,” said Cap­tain Paul Wat­son. “Their posi­tion of sid­ing with the poach­ers seems to be that if we did not put our­selves in this sit­u­a­tion we would not be expe­ri­enc­ing such vio­lence. The same could be said for any police­man and Sea Shep­herd is not down here to protest whal­ing, we are down here to obstruct ille­gal whal­ing as defined under inter­na­tion­al con­ser­va­tion law. We are down here to enforce the law, not to break it.”

There is a legal prece­dent for Sea Shep­herd’s inter­ven­tion and that is the Unit­ed Nation World Char­ter for Nature that allows for non-gov­ern­men­tal orga­ni­za­tions to uphold inter­na­tion­al con­ser­va­tion law and in Sec­tion 21(e) specif­i­cal­ly in areas beyond nation­al juris­dic­tions.

The Japan­ese whale poach­ers have the advan­tage of supe­ri­or ships, faster, more pow­er­ful ships, they have weapons and they have the sup­port of their gov­ern­ment that will defend what­ev­er actions they take includ­ing the killing of our crew if that should occur.
On Feb­ru­ary 6th, two inci­dents occurred where the Steve Irwin col­lid­ed with har­poon ves­sels as they forced their way past the Steve Irwin’s block­ade in their pur­suit of their poach­ing activ­i­ties. These col­li­sions were not inten­tion­al on the part of Sea Shep­herd.

“Ear­li­er we filmed a whale being ille­gal­ly killed and we watched as that whale endured an ago­niz­ing death, thrash­ing about in its own blood for twen­ty-five min­utes,” said Cap­tain Wat­son. “We view the killing of that whale as cold blood­ed mur­der and we are com­mit­ted to doing every­thing we can, short of inflict­ing injuries our­selves, to pro­tect these defence­less, gen­tle, intel­li­gent and social­ly com­plex sen­tient beings.”

The har­poon boats have not returned to the Nis­shin Maru since the last inci­dent occurred at 1800 Hours on Feb­ru­ary 6th.

The Sea Shep­herd Con­ser­va­tion Soci­ety has made it clear to the gov­ern­ment of Aus­tralia that our inter­ven­tions which are becom­ing increas­ing­ly more dan­ger­ous because of Japan­ese aggres­sion can be avoid­ed by Peter Gar­rett and Kevin Rudd sim­ply mak­ing good on their pre-elec­tion promise to take the Japan­ese whalers to court.

“Because Gar­rett and Rudd have reneged on their promis­es to us, the peo­ple of Aus­tralia, we have been forced to defend these whales as Aus­tralian cit­i­zens in these hos­tile and remote waters sim­ply because some­one has to,” said Andrew Per­ry of Hobart, Tas­ma­nia.

—–

Steve Irwin Suf­fers Sec­ond Col­li­sion with the Japan­ese Fleet

Oper­a­tion Musashi
Update from the Ross Sea

Feb­ru­ary 6th, 2009, 1830 Hours (Syd­ney Time)
2330 Hours (PST) (Feb­ru­ary 5th)
75 Degrees 52 Min­utes South and 165 Degrees 18 Min­utes West

At 1800 Hours the har­poon ves­sels Yushin Maru No. 1 and the Yushin Maru No.3 decid­ed to run the Sea Shep­herd block­ade to trans­fer two dead whales to the flens­ing deck of the Nis­shin Maru. The Sea Shep­herd ship Steve Irwin was block­ing the slip­way to pre­vent the trans­fer in order to shut down the ille­gal Japan­ese whal­ing oper­a­tions.

As the Nis­shin Maru attempt­ed to hook onto the dead whale, the Steve Irwin and the Yushin Maru No.3 col­lid­ed with the for­ward star­board side of the Steve Irwin and the port stern side of the har­poon ves­sel com­ing togeth­er.

“We told them to not con­tin­ue their ille­gal whal­ing oper­a­tions and that we would be block­ing the stern slip­way of the fac­to­ry ship,” said Cap­tain Paul Wat­son. “They decid­ed to test our resolve and appar­ent­ly expect­ed us to retreat when they charged in ahead of us to make the trans­fer.”

Cap­tain Wat­son said that the Steve Irwin became dif­fi­cult to con­trol under a bar­rage of met­al objects, blasts from the water can­nons, and the dis­ori­en­ta­tion caused by the LRAD acoustic weapons that the whalers were using on the con­ser­va­tion­ists.

“I was dazed by the son­ic blasts being used on us at close range.” said Cap­tain Wat­son. “I have to admit it was dif­fi­cult to con­cen­trate with that devise being focused on us.”

“I’ve nev­er felt any­thing quite like it,” said Emi­ly Hunter from Toron­to, Cana­da. “It pen­e­trates the body and you can feel your mus­cles vibrat­ing. It made me dizzy and left me some­what dazed.”

The Steve Irwin suf­fered no notice­able dam­age from the col­li­sion and no one was seri­ous­ly injured. A few of the Sea Shep­herd crew were struck by golf balls and pieces of met­al. The crew of the Steve Irwin were unable to deter­mine if there was any dam­age done to the har­poon hunter killer boat.

The two whales were trans­ferred after the Steve Irwin shut down the oper­a­tions of the fleet for twelve hours.

“We are try­ing to make this as dif­fi­cult as pos­si­ble for them to con­tin­ue their ille­gal activ­i­ties, “said Mol­ly Kendall from Ade­laide, South Aus­tralia. “It is dif­fi­cult to see them mur­der­ing these whales and we are deter­mined to do every­thing we pos­si­bly can to stop this hor­rif­ic slaugh­ter.”

The Steve Irwin remains on the tail of the Nis­shin Maru to attempt to obstruct any fur­ther trans­fers in an effort to stop the unlaw­ful poach­ing of the whales by the Japan­ese whal­ing fleet.

“I wish we did not have to be down here in this dan­ger­ous sit­u­a­tion,” said Cap­tain Wat­son. “I’ve said repeat­ed­ly that if Aus­tralia or New Zealand would agree to take Japan to the inter­na­tion­al court on this than we would back off. Because inter­na­tion­al law is not being enforced, we have no choice but to do what we can with the resources avail­able to us to defend these endan­gered whales in this estab­lished inter­na­tion­al whale sanc­tu­ary.”

—–

Update from the Ross Sea
Sea Shep­herd’s Oper­a­tion Musashi

Feb­ru­ary 6th, 2009
0800 Hours (Syd­ney Time)
1300 Hours (PST) (Feb­ru­ary 5th)
75 Degrees 44 Min­utes South and 165 Degrees 39 Min­utes West
The Sea Shep­herd ship Steve Irwin col­lid­ed with the Yushin Maru #2 this morn­ing as the har­poon ves­sel moved in to block the Steve Irwin’s attempt to pre­vent the trans­fer of a dead whale up the slip­way of the Nis­shin Maru.

“We were in the process of block­ing the trans­fer from the Yushin Maru #2 when the Yushin Maru #1 moved direct­ly in front of the bow to block us,” said Cap­tain Wat­son. “I could not turn to star­board with­out hit­ting the Yushin Maru #1. I tried to back down but the move­ment of the Yushin Maru #2 made the col­li­sion unavoid­able.”

The Yushin Maru #2 was trans­fer­ring a 2nd whale killed this morn­ing.

“The whalers have decid­ed to test our resolve,” said 1st Offi­cer Peter Ham­marst­edt. “They have esca­lat­ed this bat­tle to see just how deter­mined we are to pro­tect these whales. We’re shep­herds and we will do what we can to pro­tect our flock from these mur­der­ous poach­ers.”

The Yushin Maru #3 has also killed a whale but is unable to approach the fac­to­ry ship because the Steve Irwin is now guard­ing the slip­way.

The Sea Shep­herd crew intend to hold this posi­tion to pre­vent the trans­fer.

Earth First! tree planting weekend in Pennines Fri 13th-Sun 15th March

The annu­al and occa­sion­al­ly hedo­nis­tic oppor­tu­ni­ty to plant thou­sands of native trees on a eco­log­i­cal­ly degrad­ed hill­side is hap­pen­ing in March. Organ­ised by Earth First!

EF! fist tree 1The annu­al and occa­sion­al­ly hedo­nis­tic oppor­tu­ni­ty to plant thou­sands of native trees on a eco­log­i­cal­ly degrad­ed hill­side is hap­pen­ing in March. Organ­ised by Earth First! activists in col­lab­o­ra­tion with Calderdale com­mu­ni­ty group Treespon­si­bil­i­ty we will be based in Heb­den Bridge in Calderdale. If you fan­cy a week­end of hard but sat­is­fy­ing work plant­i­ng native wood­land com­bined with good food and social­is­ing put the week­end of the 13–15th March in your diary.

Earth First! tree plant­i­ng week­end…

Date: Fri­day 13th — Sun­day 15th March

Venue: We will be stay­ing in a camp­ing barn with com­fy beds and heat­ing. Bring a sleep­ing bag.

Trans­port: Get your­self to Heb­den Bridge train sta­tion for a pick up at 6pm or 8pm on the 13th. Pick­ups are avail­able by arrange­ment at oth­er times if you e‑mail in advance.

Food: All food will be cooked col­lec­tive­ly and will be veg­an.

Cost: £25 for the week­end. This includes all food and acco­mo­da­tion. You’ll have to sup­ply you own beer. We will be vis­it­ing the famous Blue Pig pub­lic house on the Sat­ur­day night.

Need more info? Con­tact: treesponsibility@yahoo.co.uk or call 07983743894

Communique released from ELF action at university

“Com­plete com­mu­nique of the action of Jan­u­ary 29:

Full communique released from ELF action at university“Com­plete com­mu­nique of the action of Jan­u­ary 29:

In the ear­ly morn­ing of Jan­u­ary 29, the sub­mis­sive fire­fight­ers in Mex­i­co City (D.F.) quelled a fire with­in the premis­es of the Col­lege of Sci­ences and Human­i­ties south cam­pus (CCH Sur) of the Uni­ver­si­dad Nacional Autóno­ma de Méx­i­co (UNAM). There a machine which destroys the Earth was left for­ev­er unus­able, and the admin­is­tra­tion offices of the cam­pus were burned.

The Frente de Lib­eración de la Tier­ra (ELF) claimed this attack through a con­tact; we were informed that the uni­ver­si­ty had been destroy­ing a large part of the eco­log­i­cal reserve where a so-called ‘edu­ca­tion’ cen­ter is being built, sev­er­al vari­eties of trees and diverse plants were cut down, con­sid­ered to be in the way of their abil­i­ty to expand their facil­i­ties, and their mas­tery over nature; the progress and edu­ca­tion that they extol in their class­rooms is always based on dom­i­na­tion and anthro­pocen­trism. In this act by the UNAM, it is more than clear that not only do they wish to dom­i­nate and mold the minds of stu­dents, they also seek to expand the same con­trol over the land and the ani­mals that inhab­it her. That’s why the destruc­tive machine was burned, and why we also decid­ed to set a fire on cam­pus, now an indis­putable part of the eco­cide that edu­ca­tion imple­ments, which only wants to pro­duce peo­ple who are sub­mis­sive to author­i­ty and pow­er; they cre­ate beings who are unable to think and act for them­selves and are only edu­cat­ed to pro­duce and con­sume.

The mass media of mis­com­mu­ni­ca­tion, which hid the machine which had been burned, only now announced that part of the admin­is­tra­tive offices had been burned, and that this had been caused by Por­ro (shock groups) [groups orga­nized to dis­cred­it stu­dent move­ments]; we want to make clear that the ELF/FLT is not com­posed of such peo­ple, who are sent by their boss­es to do absurd and mean­ing­less things; our rea­sons are clear, as we strug­gle for total lib­er­a­tion (ani­mal, land and human), and if any­thing blocks us we will face it until its com­plete destruc­tion and elim­i­na­tion.

We know that the esti­mat­ed dam­age of this action was thou­sands of pesos, but still we are not sat­is­fied with that, and we will con­tin­ue mak­ing war on all that oppress­es us and will not allow us all to be hap­py– us, ani­mals and the land.

This was just a lit­tle mes­sage, for those who prof­it at the expense of the destruc­tion and dom­i­na­tion of the ecosys­tem.

ELF/FLT Méx­i­co”

anony­mous com­mu­nique (trans­la­tion) from http://directaction.info