UK No Borders Gathering 8–9 November

Just over a month till the next net­work-wide No Bor­ders Gath­er­ing, to be held in New­cas­tle on 8 & 9 Novem­ber.

The Gath­er­ing will be a chance to dis­cuss, net­work and plan, and to build on the dis­cus­sions held at the last net­work-wide Gath­er­ing ear­li­er this year.

Just over a month till the next net­work-wide No Bor­ders Gath­er­ing, to be held in New­cas­tle on 8 & 9 Novem­ber.

The Gath­er­ing will be a chance to dis­cuss, net­work and plan, and to build on the dis­cus­sions held at the last net­work-wide Gath­er­ing ear­li­er this year.

The Gath­er­ing is a col­lec­tive­ly organ­ised event with shared respon­si­bil­i­ty for con­tent and organ­i­sa­tion, being co-ordi­nat­ed this time by peo­ple in New­cas­tle. It will take place on Sat­ur­day 8th and Sun­day 9th Novem­ber, start­ing 9am for break­fast for a 10am start each day, end­ing at 6pm on the Sat­ur­day and 2pm on the Sun­day. Venue details and direc­tions will be post­ed near­er the time. Accom­mo­da­tion will be avail­able on request.

You can con­tact us at whydontyou@post.com if you’d like more info, would like to sug­gest items for dis­cus­sion at the Gath­er­ing or would like to get involved.

No Bor­ders is a net­work of groups strug­gling for the free­dom of move­ment for all and an end to all migra­tion con­trols. We call for a rad­i­cal move­ment against the sys­tem of con­trol, divid­ing us into cit­i­zens and non-cit­i­zens.
We demand the end of the bor­der regime for every­one, includ­ing our­selves, to enable us to live anoth­er way, with­out fear, racism and nation­al­ism.
Vis­it the web­site www.noborders.org.uk

new­cas­tle plan­ning group
whydontyou@post.com

Earth First! Winter Moot — last update

Brighton, Feb­ru­ary 6–7‑8th 2009

The Earth First! Win­ter moot is an oppor­tu­ni­ty for peo­ple who feel affil­i­a­tion with the ideas behind Earth First! to net­work, dis­cuss and reflect on the eco­log­i­cal direct action move­ment and to plan for the future. In con­trast with the year­ly EF! Sum­mer Gath­er­ing, which is held out­side for around five days, the win­ter moot is a short­er week­end meet­ing, inside, less aimed at skill shar­ing and more at look­ing where we are at as move­ment and where we want to be going.

EF! Winter Moot poster 2009Brighton, Feb­ru­ary 6–7‑8th 2009

The Earth First! Win­ter moot is an oppor­tu­ni­ty for peo­ple who feel affil­i­a­tion with the ideas behind Earth First! to net­work, dis­cuss and reflect on the eco­log­i­cal direct action move­ment and to plan for the future. In con­trast with the year­ly EF! Sum­mer Gath­er­ing, which is held out­side for around five days, the win­ter moot is a short­er week­end meet­ing, inside, less aimed at skill shar­ing and more at look­ing where we are at as move­ment and where we want to be going.

Earth First! is not an organ­i­sa­tion, but a ban­ner for non-hier­ar­chi­cal organ­is­ing and the use of direct action to con­front, stop and even­tu­al­ly reverse the forces that are respon­si­ble for the destruc­tion of the Earth and its inhab­i­tants.

Top­ics that have been raised include (Updat­ed):
— the Copen­hagen cli­mate sum­mit with a num­ber of peo­ple from Den­mark com­ing over to talk about logis­tics, tac­tics and mobil­i­sa­tion
— the G20 sum­mit in Lon­don
— Leave it in the ground / coal
— GM
— Ross­port
— Strength­en­ing the EF net­work: com­mu­ni­ca­tion and secu­ri­ty, actionup­date and gath­er­ings
— Impli­ca­tions of the cri­sis
— Cli­mate and migra­tion / eco-activism and Nobor­der net­works
— Heathrow expan­sion
— UK Bio­fu­els
— Nan­otech­nol­o­gy
— Water-based actions

There will not be work­shops on any of these top­ics — please inform your­self on top­ics of your inter­est before the moot. We will be focus­ing on dis­cussing strat­e­gy and action plan­ning.

There will be a Sav­ing Ice­land meet­ing on the Fri­day after­noon before the gath­er­ing.

Please con­tact the orga­niz­ing col­lec­tive (moot2009@earthfirst.org.uk) know if you want to add any­thing, want to help with facil­i­ta­tion or have any oth­er queries. You are wel­come to use our PGP key below.
Sug­ges­tion: read the activist secu­ri­ty guide on http://www.activistsecurity.org/

There will be sleep­ing places arranged and food avail­able at cost price from Fri­day evening. The pro­gram will start on Sat­ur­day at 10 AM. Please be on time.

Venue: Cow­ley Club, 12 Lon­don Road.
http://www.cowleyclub.org.uk/
(Please do not con­tact the Cow­ley Club phone nr. with infor­ma­tion requests).
Click for direc­tions

Please note:
— No dogs please
— The week­end is not open to jour­nal­ists

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So, here’s the low­down on what the Dan­ish peo­ple com­ing over for the EF! Win­ter Moot will be talk­ing about.

*Copen­hagen Cli­mate Sum­mit*
Do we cheer them on, block them in, or close them down?

*When?*
*Where?*
*What?* Dan­ish Kli­max activists will kick off a dis­cus­sion about the move­ment to stop cli­mate change.
*Why?* The UN talks in Copen­hagen this Decem­ber are sup­posed to be the place where world lead­ers agree a new inter­na­tion­al deal to stop cli­mate change.
But progress so far has been under­mined by cor­po­rate lob­by­ing and false, mar­ket-based solu­tions. When activists from across Europe hit the streets of Copen­hagen, should we be call­ing on gov­ern­ments to do bet­ter, blockad­ing them in until they come up with a good deal, or be say­ing they are so flawed we should try to close them down?

Most peo­ple now agree that we need to do some­thing about cli­mate change. But there isn’t agree­ment on what. For cor­po­ra­tions and most gov­ern­ments its a form of green (or maybe green­washed) cap­i­tal­ism and before we even get there it will prob­a­bly be too late. In oppo­si­tion to this cor­po­rate agen­da, social move­ments in the South have pro­posed ‘cli­mate jus­tice’, a tran­si­tion to a sus­tain­able world which sees the rich minor­i­ty who caused cli­mate change pay to put it right, not try and push the costs onto the poor major­i­ty.

With­in this more pro­gres­sive agen­da pro­pos­als range from a ‘green new deal’ of state-led invest­ment for social and envi­ron­men­tal goals, to those who argue that only a grass­roots anti-cap­i­tal­ism can get us out of this mess. This is the polit­i­cal back­ground to the mobil­i­sa­tion around the Copen­hagen cli­mate talks and the strate­gic and tac­ti­cal deci­sions activists are try­ing to make about it.

This is a chance for activists who are less and more involved in cli­mate cam­paign­ing to come togeth­er and dis­cuss all these issues. We can also talk about how we mobilise for what may be one of the most impor­tant events since the ‘bat­tle’ of Seat­tle exact­ly 10 years pre­vi­ous­ly.

SWOMP — A freestate in Amsterdam, the Netherlands

Intro­duc­tion

It is the fourth time activists have squat­ted a piece of land in the Pijp (an area of Ams­ter­dam) and by far the most suc­ces­ful action. They are protest­ing against unnec­es­sary demo­li­tion and spec­u­la­tion as well as tak­ing action in sup­port of local neigh­bour­hoods for a sus­tain­able future.

Intro­duc­tion

It is the fourth time activists have squat­ted a piece of land in the Pijp (an area of Ams­ter­dam) and by far the most suc­ces­ful action. They are protest­ing against unnec­es­sary demo­li­tion and spec­u­la­tion as well as tak­ing action in sup­port of local neigh­bour­hoods for a sus­tain­able future.

swomp solar

Some his­to­ry

On July 11, 2008, a group of peo­ple from the Pijp squat­ting group and Groen­front! Ams­ter­dam squat­ted a vacant lot at Rusten­berg­er­straat 438–440. A school had pre­vi­ous­ly stood on the land and was demol­ished against the wish­es of the neigh­bour­hood, prob­a­bly to pre­vent it being squat­ted. There are cur­rent­ly no plans for the site, which has a tree which is pro­tect­ed by per­mits. Pre­vi­ous land squats had been evict­ed quite bru­tal­ly by police so this time the activists were pre­pared — they were in large num­bers, had the sup­port of local res­i­dents and made sure their car­a­vans were well secured in the ground!

After one month, the project declared itself a free state and the res­i­dents pledged to live in a car­bon neu­tral fash­ion on the site. Instead of wait­ing for local gov­ern­ment to decide what to do with the land they decid­ed to take action them­selves! Per­ma­cul­ture gar­dens were set up and solar pan­els were installed. Local squat cafes are doing ben­e­fits in sup­port of the project. In Sep­tem­ber an open day was held with a tour speak­ers and dis­cus­sions

swomp soil

Liv­ing at SWOMP (in the words of one res­i­dent)

The whole thing has grown into a cli­mate friend­ly exper­i­men­tal gar­den. Every day we are learn­ing more about the prob­lems you encounter when hav­ing to pro­vide for your­self (doing it in a way which means in the future you can keep pro­vid­ing your­self). These are the same prob­lems soci­ety / the com­mu­ni­ty will faces soon. We are exper­i­ment­ing with per­ma­cul­tures, we have a ground­wa­ter­pump and a solar­cell and are plan­ning to build our own eco toi­let.

Being busy with this I’m meet­ing a lot of oth­er peo­ple being busy with sim­i­lar stuff, and sud­den­ly the feel­ing of being an activist call­ing out in the land of the deaf is chang­ing. More and more peo­ple seem to be real­is­ing some­thing has to be done, and most impor­tant­ly, we can do it (we are going to win)!

We stum­bled across the con­cept of tran­si­tion towns. Appar­ent­ly oth­ers are doing the same as us. Oth­ers, not activists just com­mu­ni­ties. Com­mu­ni­ties that stop and think: how are we going to deal with the upcom­ing (unavoid­able) oil-cri­sis and cli­mate change? What hap­pens when the trucks stop dri­ving and bring­ing us food and pro­duce from all over the world? Loot­ing, only the fittest will sur­vive? Or can we as a com­mu­ni­ty pre­pare our­selves and equip our­selves with work­able solu­tions. We should start prepar­ing: Where do we get food? Who heals the sick, how do we trans­port? How do make tools with­out our cur­rent tech­nol­o­gy? And most impor­tant of all how do we pre­vent future cri­sis? How can we find a bal­anced way of liv­ing with­out wear­ing out our own sur­round­ings?

New ethics will have to be devel­oped. This all might seem a dis­tant dream or fan­ta­sy but it is already hap­pen­ing all over the world. With 33 tran­si­tion towns in Eng­land and 77 world­wide. And four times more being set up world­wide. It is actu­al­ly a very acces­si­ble way of chang­ing, it’s real­is­ing that we our­selves need to do it and nobody else. It starts with cre­at­ing con­scious­ness. Not about the upcom­ing cri­sis, every­body knows about that by now and activists all over the world feel frus­trat­ed about every­body know­ing but nobody act­ing on it.

We need to grow con­sciousnes about self-deter­mi­na­tion, and about the pos­si­bil­ties that you have as an indi­vid­ual and a com­mu­ni­ty. Of course the gov­ern­ment and cor­po­ra­tions won’t change by them­selves. We don’t need to wait for them, we should even exclude them. The steps seem so big but are actu­al­ly small and achiev­able. It starts with grow­ing con­scious­ness, its almost like a sect man! Wher­ev­er some peo­ple start being busy with tran­si­tion towns, all the peo­ple around them get infect­ed and enthu­si­asm soon grows a net­work. A net­work starts hav­ing meet­ings, and in the meet­ing real­is­tic goals will be set. “In how­ev­er many years we should be able to get at least 50% of our food from our own lands, by then we need to have reduced our oil-depen­dence, at least by the year of XXXX, we shall be total­ly inde­pen­dent”.

Stuff like that, read it, it’s inspir­ing. In Eng­land ther are some towns, vil­lages, dwellings, but also neigh­bour­hoods that start­ed think­ing about the future. These towns or dwellings will be the pio­neers in the time of tran­si­tion which pret­ty soon every­body is going to expe­ri­ence. We can wait till our wal­lets force us to change, or we can be the ones who will lat­er have the advan­tages of hav­ing start­ed off ear­ly. It’s just a log­i­cal step to take in a time like this.

Links

http://swomp.wordpress.com/>Home web­site
http://www.steenbreek.org/img/pers/DeMorgen_20080906.pdf>In the Bel­gian press

Indigenous group occupies Bukidnon ranch in Phillipines

1st Octo­ber 2008
MARAMAG, Bukid­non — Mem­bers of an indige­nous group in the vil­lages of Panal­salan and Dagum­baan in Mara­m­ag, Bukid­non, occu­pied and plant­ed crops on a 520-hectare land that used to be the cat­tle ranch of for­mer Kibawe May­or Ernesto Vil­lalon.

1st Octo­ber 2008
MARAMAG, Bukid­non — Mem­bers of an indige­nous group in the vil­lages of Panal­salan and Dagum­baan in Mara­m­ag, Bukid­non, occu­pied and plant­ed crops on a 520-hectare land that used to be the cat­tle ranch of for­mer Kibawe May­or Ernesto Vil­lalon.

Say­ing they have to avert food short­age in their com­mu­ni­ties, 100 mem­bers of the Panal­salan Dagum­baan Trib­al Asso­ci­a­tion (Pada­ta) plant­ed fruit trees and corn in the ranch pend­ing the approval of their Com­mu­ni­ty-based For­est Man­age­ment (CBFM) appli­ca­tion for prop­er­ty.

Vil­lalon’s For­est Land Graz­ing Lease Agree­ment (FLGLA) No. 1816 expired on Decem­ber 1997. Its con­trol thus tech­ni­cal­ly revert­ed to the Depart­ment of Envi­ron­ment and Nat­ur­al Resources (DENR). Since the place is moun­tain­ous and is part of the Kulkul Range and clas­si­fied as tim­ber­land, the new set­tlers claimed it is viable for the CBFM pro­gram.

Pada­ta chief Datu Hen­ry Aslag had applied for a CBFM at the office of the DENR but the depart­ment has not act­ed on the mat­ter yet.

CBFM is a strat­e­gy for sus­tain­able for­est devel­op­ment that address­es rur­al pover­ty and pro­mot­ing social jus­tice. Under this pro­gram, the com­mu­ni­ty or actu­al res­i­dents in a pro­duc­tion for­est are the de fac­to man­agers of the land, allow­ing them to devel­op, uti­lize and con­serve spe­cif­ic por­tions of the for­est lands with­in a 25-year pro­duc­tion-shar­ing agree­ment.

The grow­ing pover­ty inci­dence in these two vil­lages caused the indige­nous group to apply for CBFM and occup­py the tim­ber­land that had been under DENR super­vi­sion since 1997.

Aslag jus­ti­fied this, say­ing: “In order to sur­vive, 70 per­cent of our mem­bers eke out a liv­ing as sea­son­al agri-work­ers of a near­by banana plan­ta­tion earn­ing a mea­ger P70-100 dai­ly. We must start plant­i­ng before we run out of bud­get to buy NFA rice.”

DENR data show that the total for­est land area in Bukid­non is 669,576 hectares, com­prised of 187,548 hectares of pro­duc­tion for­est and 481,978 hectares of pro­tec­tion for­est.

To date, only 15 per­cent or 26,977.9 hectares of the total pro­duc­tion for­est has CBFM appli­ca­tion. When approved, Pada­ta would be the 48th CBFM hold­er in the province.

“Embrac­ing the spir­it of CBFM which pro­motes social jus­tice, we appeal to Sec­re­tary Atien­za to grant our CBFM appli­ca­tion the ear­li­est time pos­si­ble,” said Aslag, a leader of the Talaandig tribe.

He also urged the office of the Nation­al Com­mis­sion on Indige­nous Peo­ple (NCIP) to expe­dite the Free Pri­or Informed Con­sent (FPIC) process which is a require­ment before DENR shall approve their CBFM appli­ca­tion.

Pada­ta also sub­mit­ted to Sec­re­tary Atien­za a peti­tion for denial of Vil­lalon’s lease renew­al after the DENR region­al office endorsed the said appli­ca­tion despite the absence of a cer­ti­fi­ca­tion from the NCIP.

“We actu­al­ly ques­tion the action of DENR Region­al Exec­u­tive Direc­tor Max­i­mo Dichoso. We do not want to believe that there is a con­nivance between Vil­lalon and the DENR region­al office behind Sec­re­tary Atien­za­’s watch,” said Aslag.

He argued that it will be unrea­son­able for DENR to retain Vil­lalon’s ranch because of his fail­ure to devel­op the land for cat­tle graz­ing by giv­ing up his con­trol over around 150 hectares to farm­ers.

Aslag said that the most effec­tive approach to revive the pro­duc­tiv­i­ty of the land and con­serve the for­est is to rather dis­trib­ute the land to land­less farm­ers through CBFM

nuclear protester in court .so early protest to support comrades rolls royce trident anti nuclear protest

mon­day 20/10/08
our com­rades are in court .they used lock­ins /outside rolls royce nuclear plant rayesway der­by .due in court 20/10/08 sup­port them and come to ear­ly morn­ing prottest

Derby Trident red linemon­day 20/10/08
our com­rades are in court .they used lock­ins /outside rolls royce nuclear plant rayesway der­by .due in court 20/10/08 sup­port them and come to ear­ly morn­ing prottest

our com­rades are in court /for cross­ing the so called gov­er­ment red lines .they were locked in con­crete blocks .it took police 4 hours to free them ./.on the tar­mac out­side ro;;s royce are red lines .the tar­mac is pro­vid­ed out of ratepay­ers mon­ey .not r,r .if you cross it it is ile­gal .when tak­ing a dri­ving test .does the high­way code men­tion red lines .how many peo­ple in the street know what they are for./ /the ille­gal tri­dent weapons banned by the un .but as usu­al not america.are stored ura­ni­am .as more close by is b.o.c thet store gas­es in bot­tles calor oxy­gen aceya­line propane all lethal to bomb mak­ers .1000 yards away is celanese chem­i­cal and acatate plant /so many dan­ger­ous chem­i­cals on premis­es there is a ben­zene tank .acatate acids stuff ive not heard off .there have been many fires and expol­sions ‚the last one /the ben­zene tank .,22 fire engines and specail units .a 7 hour bat­tle they claimed was a over­heat­ed valve /yet they sealed spon­don off /this fac­to­ry was on the i.r.a list /.and oth­er ter­ror groups .all 3 premis­es can be got in with ease .secu­ri­ty is poor .all are in flood plains and get­ting worse as new build­ings go up so come alng and sup­port .the prottest on the 20/10/08 /. pick­up points der­by sta­toin ./spondon sta­tion .safe park­ing pri­vat land .trans­port each way /pete 07727226032 /email tigger1946@fsmail.net

4 Women Lock Down in LURC Office to Oppose Recent Decision

Sep­tem­ber 29, 2008
LURC Office
Augus­ta, Maine

“Why did you sell our future?” Group Asks LURC
Act of Civ­il Dis­obe­di­ence a Way to be Heard When the Sys­tem is Bro­ken?

Sep­tem­ber 29, 2008
LURC Office
Augus­ta, Maine

“Why did you sell our future?” Group Asks LURC
Act of Civ­il Dis­obe­di­ence a Way to be Heard When the Sys­tem is Bro­ken?

Today, in an act of civ­il dis­obe­di­ence, four women locked their necks togeth­er in the office of the Land Use Reg­u­la­to­ry Com­mis­sion (LURC). Last week, LURC sig­naled their approval for the con­tro­ver­sial Con­cept Plan put forth by Plum Creek to rezone a large tract of the Moose­head Lake Region. The women, part of Maine Earth First!, refused to leave the office until the LURC staff could explain why they had rec­om­mend­ed approval of the plan.

Last week, the Com­mis­sion approved the plan revi­sions that LURC staff rec­om­mend­ed in a move that sur­prised many who have been watch­ing the process close­ly. Crit­ics of the plan not­ed that LURC received over 1,700 com­ments oppos­ing a resort devel­op­ment at Lily Bay as part of the Plum Creek Con­cept Plan. LURC received only 6 com­ments in favor of the plan. Despite this over­whelm­ing pub­lic state­ment against the Plum Creek devel­op­ment, the com­mis­sion refused to amend their rec­om­men­da­tions by remov­ing the Lily Bay resort. “The pub­lic has spo­ken on this issue, and LURC refus­es to lis­ten. We want to know why they are sell­ing our future,” said Emi­ly Paine, one of the four locked togeth­er.

Many of the groups that inter­vened in the for­mal Con­cept plan review process are expect­ed to file appeals to LUR­C’s deci­sion in Maine Supe­ri­or Court. Some of the grounds for these appeals are like­ly to revolve around the flawed process that has LURC staff writ­ing changes to Plum Creek’s plan so that it can be rub­ber stamped by the Com­mis­sion. The staff that is work­ing on tai­lor­ing the Con­cept Plan for Plum Creek works in the office occu­pied by Paine and oth­ers. “We aren’t leav­ing until the LURC staff who made the rec­om­men­da­tions can ade­quate­ly jus­ti­fy their actions. Many Main­ers believe their process has been unde­mo­c­ra­t­ic and cor­rupt… LUR­C’s deci­sion flies in the face of thou­sands of Main­ers who have expressed seri­ous con­cerns about the Con­cept Plan.” said Meg Gilmartin, anoth­er of the women locked down.

Maine Earth First! has been crit­i­cal of the plan from the begin­ning, but this is the first time peo­ple from that group have com­mit­ted civ­il dis­obe­di­ence to express their con­cerns. LURC will meet on Wed. Octo­ber 1st to present its final ver­sion of the plan to Plum Creek who will then have ten days to accept or reject the plan. Mem­bers of Maine Earth First! are pledg­ing con­tin­ued resis­tance to the plan as it moves for­ward in the com­ing months. Gilmartin said, “We are com­plete­ly ded­i­cat­ed to doing what LURC has refused to do: pro­tect­ing a way of life, safe­guard­ing bio­di­ver­si­ty, pro­mot­ing cli­mate sta­bil­i­ty and pre­serv­ing the cul­ture that makes the Moose­head Lake Region so unique and so won­der­ful. This is just the begin­ning.”

Maine Earth First! is an all vol­un­teer move­ment ded­i­cat­ed to pro­tect­ing the long term cli­mate sta­bil­i­ty of the plan­et, max­i­miz­ing bio­di­ver­si­ty, and main­tain­ing the rur­al way of life and cul­ture of Maine. No Com­pro­mise in Defense of Moth­er Earth!

Plum Creek pro­pos­es to rezone 20,000 acres, for devel­op­ment of high-end resorts and sec­ond homes as part of its Moose­head Lake Con­cept Plan. The plan includes 90,000 acres of con­ser­va­tion ease­ments to sat­is­fy the Land Use Reg­u­la­to­ry Com­mis­sion’s (LURC) require­ment for a con­ser­va­tion bal­ance. An addi­tion­al 266,000 acres worth of devel­op­ment rights on Plum Creek land will be sold to The Nature Con­ser­van­cy and The Appalachi­an Moun­tain Club for $35 mil­lion. This con­ser­va­tion is being hailed by many as an unprece­dent­ed oppor­tu­ni­ty to pro­tect a large tract of land in North­ern Maine, how­ev­er, the con­ser­va­tion ease­ments only pre­vent fur­ther devel­op­ment. They still allow eco­log­i­cal­ly destruc­tive prac­tices such as grav­el min­ing, spread­ing of sewage sludge, com­mer­cial water extrac­tion, indus­try defined “sus­tain­able forestry,” road build­ing and the erec­tion of pow­er-lines.

A con­tentious com­po­nent of the Con­cept Plan is Plum Creek’s devel­op­ment visions for Lily Bay on the unde­vel­oped east­ern shore of Moose­head Lake. This area is nat­ur­al habi­tat for the endan­gered Cana­da Lynx and abuts the high­ly val­ued and uti­lized Lily Bay State Park. Plum Creek wish­es to build a resort that can accom­mo­date over 700 units, a mari­na and golf course. Plum Creek’s lead attor­ney, Sev­erin Beliv­eau told LURC that “Lily Bay is the key­stone to this plan. With­out Lily Bay there is no plan.” How­ev­er, over 1700 cit­i­zens have writ­ten to LURC express­ing a dif­fer­ent view, oppos­ing any devel­op­ment in this area (just six have writ­ten LURC in favor of Lily Bay devel­op­ment). LURC is pre­peared to approve the Con­cept Plan, includ­ing Lily Bay devel­op­ment and dis­card this clear pub­lic out­cry against Plum Creek’s pro­posed eco­log­i­cal destruc­tion of the Moose­head Region.

E.ON Targeted in Sweden in Solidarity with the Climate Camp

29.09.2008
An E.ON facil­i­ty in the work­ing class dis­trict of Moll­e­van­gen, Mal­mo was tar­gat­ed to high­light E.ON’s plans to build the UK’s first new coal fired pow­er sta­tion for 30 years.

eon grafittied in Sweden29.09.2008
An E.ON facil­i­ty in the work­ing class dis­trict of Moll­e­van­gen, Mal­mo was tar­gat­ed to high­light E.ON’s plans to build the UK’s first new coal fired pow­er sta­tion for 30 years.

Despite E.ON work­ing exten­sive­ly on renew­ables and reduc­ing car­bon emis­sions in Swe­den, the com­pa­ny con­tin­ues to push coal in the UK.

The build­ing of Kingsnorth coal fired pow­er sta­tion on the Hoo penin­su­lar in Kent will cause res­pi­ra­to­ry prob­lems and haz­ardous wastes in the local area, raise the coun­try’s emis­sions to unsus­tain­able lev­els, swerve ener­gy sup­ply into non-renew­able dirty fos­sil fuels rather than renew­ables, and feed a com­mu­ni­ty-frac­tur­ing and pol­lut­ing glob­al coal mar­ket which along with the expan­sion of oth­er fos­sil fuels threat­ens the ecosys­tems of the plan­et.

The cam­paign against kingsnorth, like the poten­tial effects of the 8 new coal fired pow­er sta­tions the UK gov­ern­ment could sanc­tion this Autumn, is glob­al.

Swedish sol­i­dar­i­ty steps up to sup­port this cam­paign in the UK.

The grafit­ti is at a promi­nent inter­sec­tion in the city and will be seen by thou­sands of peo­ple who will ques­tion E.ON’s green spin and con­tra­dic­tion between its’ work in Swe­den and its new coal plans for the UK.

For more infor­ma­tion about the stop kingsnorth cam­paign see www.climatecamp.org.uk

Stalking the Solitaire

29.09.2008
Shell to Sea Kayak­ers vis­it the Soli­taire in Scot­land

29.09.2008
Shell to Sea Kayak­ers vis­it the Soli­taire in Scot­land

At the crack of dawn on Sun­day two Shell to Seas Kayak­ers, the James Con­nel­ly and the Ken Saro Wiwa paid an auda­cious vis­it to the Soli­tiare cur­rent­ly lying 1.5 nau­ti­cal miles off the banks of the Clyde, Scot­land. The kayak­ers want­ed to estab­lish for defi­nate whether the ship was return­ing to Ire­land for a sec­ond attempt at lay­ing the pipe or was to return to Rot­ter­dam for repairs. Ini­tial­ly radio con­tact was made with the ship whose bridge crew refused to dis­close its inten­tions. The activists attempt­ed to board the Soli­taitre but were thwart­ed by secu­ri­ty pres­ence on the pon­toon lying along­side the accom­mo­da­tion lad­der. They then pad­dled around to the Stinger where they were only feet away from a high ten­sion cable that was being winched onto a near­by barge. Work con­tin­ued with com­plete dis­re­gard for the health & safe­ty of the kayak­ers. The kayak crew con­tin­ued to attempt com­mu­ni­ca­tions with the ship’s crew for over an hour in order to estab­lish the next des­ti­na­tion of the Soli­tiare but to no avail.

Mean­while back in Mayo some equip­ment has been removed from the Glen­gad com­pound and the boats that were dredg­ing the bay last Thurs­day have gone back to Bal­ly­glass, an anchor­age just around the head­land. How­ev­er the com­mu­ni­ty in Mayo and its sup­port­ers remain on high alert for the pos­si­ble return of the Soli­taire this year.

New social centre in camberwell, london

26.9.2008
About a year after the evic­tion of the for­mer New Cam­ber­well Cen­tre, a new social cen­tre has been opened in Cam­ber­well, not far away from where the pre­vi­ous one stood.

The build­ing where the Cam­ber­well Cen­tre stood has been left emp­ty for this entire year, and only last week the boards that were placed out­side were seen with a gap to allow phys­i­cal access through the door.

26.9.2008
About a year after the evic­tion of the for­mer New Cam­ber­well Cen­tre, a new social cen­tre has been opened in Cam­ber­well, not far away from where the pre­vi­ous one stood.

The build­ing where the Cam­ber­well Cen­tre stood has been left emp­ty for this entire year, and only last week the boards that were placed out­side were seen with a gap to allow phys­i­cal access through the door.

Any­way — we have a new social cen­tre! — address is 52 Knatch­bull Road, although the entrance is through the gate on Bur­ton rd, and the build­ing is right behind Minet Library.

Meet­ings are hap­pen­ing week­ly already. Elec­tric­i­ty needs sort­ing out (hence call to all autonomous ener­gy gen­er­a­tor sys­tems) and gar­den needs clear­ing. All wel­come to help, get involved …

The next meet­ing is on Tues­day 30th Sep­tem­ber at 7pm

—

Open­ing Event in New Autonomous Space Cam­ber­well: THE LIBRARY HOUSE

CALLING OUT TO ALL AND EVERYONE A NEW SPACE HAS BEEN OPENED:

THE LIBRARY HOUSE.
52 KNATCHBULL ROAD (behind library, junc­tion with Bur­ton rd)
SE5 9QY
CAMBERWELL

WE ALL HAVE A NEW AUTONOMOUS SPACE IN SOUTH LONDON TO PLAY IN. TOGETHER WITH ALL OUR ENERGY AND IDEAS WE CAN CREATE A NEW AND INSPIRING PLACE EVERYBODY TO EXPERIMENT IN AND ENJOY.

OPENING EVENT
Sat­ur­day 4th of Octo­ber, 3pm onwards, will be our first open day. Food, music, gar­den­ing, work­shops, DIY…

LOOK FORWARD TO SEEING YOUR KNOWN FACES WITH NEW ONES.

THE LIBRARY HOUSE.

Police attack on London Critical Mass & I Bike MCR Mini Festival & South London CM reminder & Liverpool report

While there was a notable absence of police on the Sep­tem­ber Crit­i­cal Mass ride in Lon­don, we did have one unpleas­ant encounter with a very aggres­sive group of offi­cers from the TSG unit.

While there was a notable absence of police on the Sep­tem­ber Crit­i­cal Mass ride in Lon­don, we did have one unpleas­ant encounter with a very aggres­sive group of offi­cers from the TSG unit.

Trav­el­ling between Vic­to­ria Street and Buck­ing­ham Palace Road on Fri­day night, we ran into a van load of police dressed in over­alls, fleeces and base­ball caps. Their van was an odd sil­ver grey colour and appar­ent­ly was not equipped with a siren or flash­ing lights.

To com­pen­sate for their lack of ade­quate appa­ra­tus the offi­cers, led by # SX 836, attempt­ed to force their way through the mass by knock­ing rid­ers to the ground, and drag­ging oth­ers to the side of the road and dump­ing them on the pave­ment.

At one point SX 836 encour­aged dri­vers of oth­er vehi­cles to ram the mass, telling them “Just dri­ve at them, they’ll get out of the way!” despite the fact that we were all in the mid­dle of a traf­fic jam at the time. Anoth­er offi­cer involved whose num­ber I man­aged to note down was QA 232.

Pho­tos::
http://18hz.deid.net/2008/septembermass/vikings03im.jpg
http://18hz.deid.net/2008/septembermass/vikings01im.jpg

High­er res­o­lu­tion ver­sions of my pho­tos can be fund at

http://www.flickr.com/photos/29703759@N08/sets/72157607617808713/

—

One hel­l­l­l­ll of a mass (lon­don)

crit­i­cal mass lon­don | 01.10.2008 23:33 | Cli­mate Chaos | Lon­don
And there’s plen­ty more dra­ma to come …

I got out of work at about half past five, so i came down to the south bank ear­ly; the tide was out, so i spent a while strolling on the beach of the Thames. It’s an amaz­ing place — a beach in the mid­dle of a city of sev­en mil­lion peo­ple, and desert­ed except for me and two or three oth­ers. Like a rub­bly, silty secret gar­den.

Back up on ground lev­el, we once again set off a good few ticks after sev­en. Boo hiss. But at least we went through the Kingsway under­pass!

But — shock hor­ror! — with no cops. I did­n’t see a sin­gle poli­ceper­son accom­pa­ny­ing the ride — did my eyes deceive me? How could this be? Any­body know? We did have the cycling ambu­lance­man with us, though.

I’m very pleased to say that, as far as i could tell, the mass ran like clock­work. We kept togeth­er (most­ly — we split into a fast and a slow pack after Buck­ing­ham Palace, and i bounced between the two for a bit), we corked — we even let pedes­tri­ans through! Bril­liant! Pats on backs all round!

Although one thing that was evi­dent was much more aggres­sion from dri­vers, par­tic­u­lar­ly black cab dri­vers. Recent­ly, we’ve always had cop­pers around, and cab­bies have behaved them­selves. Tonight, though, their basic feroc­i­ty was ful­ly in evi­dence. There were two main instances of this that i saw.

The first was on High Hol­born, at the junc­tion where i spoke to the ambu­lance­man — this was why i was stopped. The mass was com­ing along from the east; i think the advance bulk had passed through, and then was a thin­ner stream of us com­ing along behind. A black cab was sat in Grape Street (i think — i’m look­ing at a map here; one of the side streets off on the north, just before the junc­tion), and i imag­ine had been wait­ing a while for the mass to pass. When it thinned out, he took his chance (we had­n’t corked him), and came out onto High Hol­born, turn­ing right, and stay­ing in the right­mos lane. Fifty metres ahead of him was a red light at the junc­tion. Less than fifty metres ahead of him was a mass­er, rid­ing slow­ly. The cab dri­ver drove less slow­ly — he drove right up to with­in inch­es of the mass­er, tail­gat­ed him for ten metres or so, and then quite delib­er­ate­ly drove straight into the back of him. The guy went down, the cab stopped, and a crowd of us clot­ted around the scene. Luck­i­ly, the guy was­n’t hurt.

I was to the left of this, in the sec­ond or third lane over, and a lit­tle way behind the cab; i saw every­thing hap­pen right in front of me. It was quite obvi­ous that the cab dri­ver did it delib­er­ate­ly: the mass­er was rid­ing at a con­stant speed, and the dri­ver accel­er­at­ed, hit­ting him. he had dri­ven to with­in inch­es of him, which is sim­ply not a safe way to dri­ve.

So, we made sure the taxi was­n’t going any­where, took pho­tos of the scene, reg­is­tra­tion plate, dri­ver, etc, and some of us who had seen it gave the guy our details. The cab­bie was­n’t giv­ing his details, though. Some­one called the police, and after a while our friends in blue duly turned up and did their best to work every­one up into a froth­ing rage. Do cops get train­ing in deal­ing with angry pun­ters (oth­er than with a trun­cheon)? Because these guys were to defus­ing con­fronta­tions as Guy Fawkes was to the bomb squad. Any­way, even­tu­al­ly, ques­tions were asked, details were record­ed and exchanged, and the lead cop­per declared that he was record­ing this as a no-injury col­li­sion, and they weren’t going to fol­low it up. Appar­ent­ly delib­er­ate­ly dri­ving into a cyclist does­n’t count as care­less dri­ving or any­thing. He came out with, essen­tial­ly, the usu­al crap about ‘our word against his’. Dur­ing this i had a long chat with the oth­er cop­per, who seemed very nice when he was­n’t try­ing to start a fight, but com­plete­ly clue­less about cycling, and indeed road safe­ty gen­er­al­ly. Still, i’m sure if i want­ed an elec­tri­cian shot dead, he’d be just my man.

I also talked to the mass­er who was hit, his two friends, and a couri­er­ish guy who also stopped. I did­n’t quite get the vic­tim’s name. Nice lad. As i said, he was­n’t hurt, but his back wheel went under the cab’s, and was pret­ty bent. I had a look at it: the hub looked like it should be okay, and the tyre and tube should be fine, but he’s going to need a new rim, (it was a Bon­trager, the poor thing!) spokes, and brake disc. Basi­cal­ly, he’s going to need a new wheel. I could­n’t see any dam­age to the stays, mech, etc, but he needs to take it to a bike shop to get it checked out. He’s got the cab­bie’s insur­ance details; he did­n’t real­ly seem to under­stand about how insur­ance works, but i’m sure he knows some­one who does.

I sug­gest­ed we bend the wheel back into shape so he could at least roll the bike home, so we found a fence and did a bit of ghet­to tru­ing — an essen­tial urban cycling skill, and the sec­ond time i’ve had to do it on a mass! He and a friend set off walk­ing for King’s Cross to catch a train home. I sin­cere­ly hope he did­n’t decide to try and ride — he had rather a touch of teenage invin­ci­bil­i­ty, so i wor­ry he might have.

Any­way, one of his friends had received a sig­nal that the rest of the mass was at Buck­ing­ham palace, so he, the couri­er­ish guy and i set off. We got there a few min­utes before the mass set off again — i just had time to wish Des Kay well with the Lords and ride a lap round the top of the Vic­to­ria Memo­r­i­al.

After that, we start­ed to get spread out, between the main body at the front and a long tail of slow rid­ers. I’m a speed­ster myself, so i was half tempt­ed to go a bit sheep­dog on them and get them mov­ing, but i end­ed up bounc­ing back and forth — going for­ward, help­ing cork or just wait­ing, and being caught up.

Taxi inci­dent num­ber two came as we rode down Theobald’s road. A stream of traf­fic was try­ing to come in from the right, i think from Red Lion Street (again, i’m look­ing at a map and guess­ing), and had been corked. There were only a few peo­ple there, so i looped back and joined them.

At the front of the queue was a taxi dri­ver. He was­n’t very hap­py about being stopped, and insist­ed we move. We did­n’t, of course — the mass was still pass­ing. He got rather upset, and start­ed shout­ing. He then start­ed edg­ing his taxi for­ward — he went from being a foot away from us to actu­al­ly press­ing his right fend­er into my leg and start­ing to push me over; there was anoth­er guy beside me, and a few peo­ple around us, and we made it clear we weren’t going any­where until the mass had passed. It did, and i was set to go — but he was still press­ing into my leg, which meant i actu­al­ly could­n’t get on my bike and move off. If i had, and he’d edged for­ward any fur­ther, i would have gone straight under him. Bit of an impasse, cue much shout­ing.

Even­tu­al­ly, he stopped his engine, got out of his cab, and came up to me and tried to shove my bike out of the way. Because he’d stopped, i was actu­al­ly able to move, and was quite hap­py to do so, so in a way, his move was quite suc­cess­ful! There was a bit more shout­ing, with nei­ther side real­ly want­i­ng to let the oth­er have the last word (although i was silent — i just want­ed to get home and have my din­ner), and a dis­gust­ing drunk old fat man walked over and start­ed shout­ing and shov­ing a lady mass­er about, but even­tu­al­ly we dis­en­tan­gled our­selves and rode on.

By this point, i was get­ting tired and hun­gry, our num­bers were down, and i decid­ed to call it a night. We hit the junc­tion with Rose­bery Avenue, where i turn left. The mass default­ed to head­ing straight on, but a few peo­ple were shout­ing to go left: i men­tioned that i was in favour of that because i want­ed to go home; the girl beside me said she want­ed to go left because she want­ed some dori­tos, which i found quite puz­zling.

It was only after i’d sped away into the night that i realised she’d said ‘bur­ri­tos’, and must have been refer­ring to the real­ly good lit­tle bur­ri­to place at Angel. I could have kicked myself, because i could real­ly have gone for a bur­ri­to right then.

And that, as they say, is that.

http://lists.riseup.net/www/info/cm-london
http://www.criticalmasslondon.org.uk/

========================

I Bike MCR presents a week long series of cycling events and activ­i­ties to cel­e­brate the bicy­cle from 6th-12th Octo­ber 2008

I Bike MCR is a grass­roots vol­un­tary group where every­one gives their time and skills for free. We organ­ise events that aim to pro­mote cycling and to build a strong sup­port­ive cycling com­mi­u­ni­ty in MCR. We do this in our own spare time because we believe that giv­ing our time to make a change will be worth it.

It will be a free fes­ti­val in order to make it acces­si­ble to every­one no mat­ter their eco­nom­ic sit­u­a­tion. We will, how­ev­er, ask for dona­tions to go to help­ing the I Bike MCR cycle cam­paign, you can give mon­ey or time please look here for info:
http://www.ibikemcr.org.uk/minihelp.htm

MINI FESTIVAL TIMETABLE
Every week-day morn­ing we will be hav­ing a group ride from Owen’s Park in Fal­low­field down Oxford Road to the Uni­ver­si­ties so that stu­dents can meet each oth­er and gain con­fi­dence by cycling in togeth­er as a group.

Meet in the carpark area of Owens Park (map)
8.15am, we’ll leave at 8.30am PROMPT to get into uni at 8.45am
We hope this will con­tin­ue after the week fes­ti­val is over.

Mon­day 6th Octo­ber
7.30pm Coun­cil Cham­bers Man­ches­ter Uni­ver­si­ty
Bicy­cle Film Night

Tues­day 7th Octo­ber
Meet 6pm Out­side Man­ches­ter Uni­ver­si­ty refec­to­ry
A bicy­cle tour around our city, tak­ing you to the nicest parks, the best bike shops, cool places to hang out, the best cycle routes, nice land­marks and nice pubs.

Wednes­day 8th Octo­ber
2pm — 5pm Email info@ibikemcr.org.uk to book a place
FREE Bicy­cle Con­fi­dence lessons. Book asap to reserve a place.
No mat­ter whether you need some tips on how to deal with a par­tic­u­lar junc­tion or how to ride one hand­ed you can ben­e­fit from a bike con­fi­dence class with a qual­i­fied cycling instruc­tor.

7pm Bas­ket­ball courts in Platt Fields Park
The Spokes Bicy­cle Dance Troupe,
The all woman Spokes bike dance troupe have an open prac­tice to encour­age more bike lov­ing women to get involved and join them in danc­ing with their bikes to encour­age more women and girls to cycle.

Thurs­day 9th Octo­ber
6pm Whit­worth Park, Den­mark Road
Bicy­cle Polo Prac­tice. We will teach new­com­ers how to play this exhil­a­rat­ing and fun sport.

Fri­day 10th Octo­ber
Reg­is­ter at 6pm, Ride at 7pm…
Meet in the carpark behind the Sand­bar, Grosvenor Street (map)
I Bike MCR Super­heroes Trea­sure­cat.
No mat­ter what bike you’re on or how well you know the city you can take part (and have a chance to win!) in this trea­sure hunt on bicy­cles.

* Dress as a super­hero for more points..go all out!
* Ride as a dynam­ic duo, both peo­ple must be present at each check­point but only one needs to do the task (if you can’t find a part­ner before­hand, don’t wor­ry you’re sure to find one on the night)
* With a final sprint to see which out of your pair is the super­hero and which is the side­kick
* If the phone rings answer it. You may get a secret mis­sion to win more points, then choose if you want to go for fastest time or most points
* Prizes for a wide vari­ety of things NOT JUST FASTEST. inc.Team back at any time with the most points, Win­ner of the final sprint, Best cos­tume and loads more…So it’s open for any­one to win a prize no mat­ter how lit­tle you know the city or how fast you can ride

Amaz­ing prizes from:
Cant­goslo
Baga­boo
Seag­ull Bags
HK Fixed
Knog
Edin­burgh Bicy­cle Co-oper­a­tive
Bicy­cle Bou­tique

Sat­ur­day 11th Octo­ber
Noon at Pic­cadil­ly train sta­tion
or 1.30pm at Delamere For­est Infor­ma­tion Cen­tre
Moun­tain bik­ing in Delamere For­est
(you can hire moun­tain bikes there)

8pm The Sand­bar Grosvenor Street (map)
Moon­light Ride: a 3 hour cir­cu­lar ride into the night with a pub stop.

Sun­day 12th Octo­ber
Noon Meet Sains­bury’s Carpark, off Wilm­slow Road, Fal­low­field
A ride along one of Man­ches­ter’s nicest off road cycle routes, the Fal­low­field Loop, where we will stop off to help cre­ate a mur­al depict­ing the cel­e­bra­tion of the bicy­cle. Every­one wel­come to get involved mak­ing the Fal­low­field Loop brighter and fun. Bring brush­es, tat­ty clothes, paints and lots of enthu­si­asm (don’t wor­ry if you not that artis­tic we’ll find some way for you to help!)

info@ibikemcr.org.uk
http://ibikemcr.org.uk/

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The 4th South Lon­don crit­i­cal mass bike ride is this fri­day and every first fri­day of the month.

Come and lib­er­ate the streets of south lon­don, tak­ing the mass to the mass­es not just to shoppers,tourists and irate cab­bies. Meet 6.30pm out­side Peck­ham Library,off Peck­ham High Street.

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Big Turnout for Liv­er­pool Crit­i­cal Mass

This mon­th’s crit­i­cal mass was big­ger than ever. The ride end­ed at Next To Nowhere (social cen­tre) where the rid­ers got free refresh­ments and saw a film.

Dozens of cyclists of all ages and back­grounds, from stu­dents to social work­ers, turned out. They includ­ed a vis­i­tor who has recent­ly come from New Zealand and took part in crit­i­cal mass rides there.

After doing a tour around the city cen­tre they stopped at the social cen­tre, where they were giv­en free soup and cakes, and watched a film show­ing the his­to­ry of how the Crit­i­cal Mass rides start­ed in San Fran­cis­co in 1993. The rides in that city grew to thou­sands-strong, and worked beau­ti­ful­ly through col­lec­tive organ­i­sa­tion, with­out com­mit­tees or lead­ers. They had the effect of caus­ing more peo­ple to com­mute by bicy­cle instead of car, and to use the bicy­cle as their nor­mal trans­port. This was dis­rupt­ed when the San Fran­cis­co police decid­ed the cyclists need­ed to be “organ­ised” and made to fol­low offi­cial­ly des­ig­nat­ed routes. Ulti­mate­ly, how­ev­er, the cyclists decid­ed they did­n’t want or need to be organ­ised.

Liv­er­pool Crit­i­cal Mass has not so far had any police inter­fer­ence, and is suc­cess­ful­ly enabling cyclists to use the roads safe­ly, and assert their right to be recog­nised as road users. But as one cyclist said, “If the police want­ed to organ­ise us — how? There are no lead­ers and no-one’s in charge. There’s just a bunch of cyclists who hap­pen coin­ci­den­tal­ly to turn up at the Chi­nese arch on the sec­ond Fri­day of the month, and go for a ride togeth­er.”

A bunch of cyclists may, coin­ci­den­tal­ly, be at the Chi­nese arch on Nel­son Street at 6pm on 12th Novem­ber and 15th Decem­ber. They would wel­come any-one who wants to turn up and ride along with them.