ELP Information Bulletin (29th of December 2007)

Dear friends

ELP has just received two bits of Amer­i­can news. First off ALF/ELF pris­on­er, Jonathan Paul, has released his first prison dis­patch. Sec­ond­ly, we have been infored that ALF/ELF pris­on­er. Chris McIn­tosh has been moved to a new address:

Dear friends

ELP has just received two bits of Amer­i­can news. First off ALF/ELF pris­on­er, Jonathan Paul, has released his first prison dis­patch. Sec­ond­ly, we have been infored that ALF/ELF pris­on­er. Chris McIn­tosh has been moved to a new address:

First­ly here is the dis­patch from Jonathan Paul.…

*********************************************

11.14.07

Friends, sup­port­ers and fam­i­ly,

This is the first of 51 month­ly dis­patch­es I will be writ­ing until I am released in 2011. Although I will be writ­ing to let every­one know how I am doing while incar­cer­at­ed at FCI Phoenix, the pur­pose of these dis­patch­es are not going to be about me, but about the real issues that threat­en life as we know it on this plan­et.

First, I would like to thank every­one who has writ­ten me in the last few weeks. Your let­ters of sup­port have over­whelmed me with emo­tion and have giv­en me strength and hope. I thank all of you from the bot­tom of my heart. From the Anar­chist writ­ing group in NY, to my tribe of friends and to those I have nev­er met, the time you took to write to me has giv­en me much strength. I would like to put out spe­cial thanks to my sis­ters, Car­o­line and Alexan­dra, my won­der­ful Mom (Mum­sie) and my dear sweet wife, Tami. I under­stand your love is uncon­di­tion­al and with that I am blessed to have you as my fam­i­ly. To my wife Tami — who has been by my side since 1999, your devo­tion and com­mit­ment to me is unmatched by any­one, ever. Thank you for help­ing me pick up the mess left in the wake of this very dif­fi­cult time in our life. To those who are sup­port­ing Tami on a dai­ly basis — I thank you also. All I can to all of you is I would do the same for you and I am in your debt.

As for life here in prison, I want you all to know I am okay. Every day that pass­es is a day clos­er to my free­dom. I look for­ward to that day and that day will come.

I want to say a few words about some­one who has inspired and amazed me over the years, a com­mit­ted
activist who has been “down” for a very long time. Moved to activism after expe­ri­enc­ing the bru­tal
pover­ty and racism expe­ri­enced as a part of every­day life, Amer­i­can Indi­an Move­ment war­rior, Leonard
Pelti­er, has been in prison for over 30 years and is serv­ing two life sen­tences for crimes he did not
com­mit. Leonard worked to pro­tect his peo­ple and the earth from the pow­er­ful ener­gy cor­po­ra­tions and the
gov­ern­ment they rule. On the Pine Ridge reser­va­tion in the 1970’s the tra­di­tion­al Native Amer­i­cans fought for their way of life while under attack from the gov­ern­ment spon­sored goons, the FBI and the coal and ura­ni­um ener­gy cor­po­ra­tions that want­ed the Black Hills for resources. The Native Amer­i­cans of this land have been sys­tem­at­i­cal­ly destroyed and oppressed in a geno­ci­dal cam­paign since the white man first stepped his ugly foot on North Amer­i­ca.

Leonard was accused and con­vict­ed of killing two FBI agents dur­ing a shootout on the Pine Ridge reser­va­tion in 1975. Leonard was wrong­ly con­vict­ed in 1977 based on coerced tes­ti­mo­ny and sup­pressed evi­dence. Leonard’s case is one of the most egre­gious exam­ples of pros­e­cu­to­r­i­al and inves­tiga­tive mis­con­duct in the his­to­ry of Amer­i­can jurispru­dence. I first became aware of the strug­gles of the Amer­i­can Indi­an Move­ment when I was in jail for resist­ing a polit­i­cal grand jury in 1992–1993. I read In the Spir­it of Crazy Horse by Peter Matthiessen while incar­cer­at­ed and could­n’t put it down. Leonard’s sto­ry gave me strength dur­ing my 6 months resist­ing the grand jury. When I was released from jail I was com­pli­ment­ed on my strength and all I could think of was Leonard’s strength.

When I turned myself into prison last month, one of the first books my wife sent me was In the Spir­it of
Crazy Horse. I read this book, for the sec­ond time, behind bars and fin­ished it in the first two days. I
con­sid­er the strug­gles of AIM and think about their fight not only against geno­cide, but also eco­cide.
Our strug­gles are one strug­gle.

To my sup­port­ers and friends — when you sit down to write me a let­ter, please put the paper aside and
write to Leonard Pelti­er. He has been in prison for more than 30 years — he has remained strong with
unprece­dent­ed integri­ty. If you sup­port me, please sup­port him. He has sac­ri­ficed his free­dom for his
peo­ple and for moth­er earth. Leonard needs to hear from our “tribe”…the envi­ron­men­tal and ani­mal rights move­ments for his strug­gle is our strug­gle. Show him and his peo­ple that we are all part of one move­ment — a move­ment to stop the geno­cide, eco­cide, and oppres­sion of all beings. We are one and when we join into one we may actu­al­ly move for­ward and be able to effect change. By sup­port­ing Leonard, you are sup­port­ing me. If Leonard hears from you and it makes him smile, gives him some hope and strength, and lets him know that he is not and nev­er will be for­got­ten, then you are giv­ing me the strength and strength to our move­ments.

Please write to Leonard at the fol­low­ing address:

Leonard Pelti­er

# 89637–132

USP LEWISBURG

U.S. PENITENTIARY

P.O. BOX 1000

LEWISBURG, PA 17837

In sol­i­dar­i­ty for the earth and ani­mals,

Jonathan Paul

#07167–085

FCI Phoenix

Fed­er­al Cor­rec­tion­al Insti­tu­tion

37910 N. 45th Ave.

Phoenix, AZ 85086

Jonathan’s co-defen­dants:

Daniel McGowan
#63794–053
FCI Sand­stone
Fed­er­al Cor­rec­tion­al Insti­tu­tion
PO Box 1000
Sand­stone, MN 55072

Nathan Block #36359–086
FCI Lom­poc
Fed­er­al Cor­rec­tion­al Insti­tu­tion
3600 Guard Road
Lom­poc, CA 93436

Joy­an­na Zach­er #36360–086
FCI Dublin
Fed­er­al Cor­rec­tion­al Insti­tu­tion
5701 8th St — Camp Parks- Unit E
Dublin, CA 94568

Friends and Fam­i­ly of Jonathan Paul
PMB# 267
2305 Ash­land St., Ste. C
Ash­land, OR 97520

Sec­ond­ly, an ELP sup­port­er has informed us that Chris ‘Dirt’ McIn­tosh has moved. Chris’ new address is:

Chris McIn­tosh
#30512–013
FCI Fair­ton
Fed­er­al Cor­rec­tion­al Insti­tu­tion
PO Box 420
Fair­ton, nj 08320
USA

Accord­ing to www.BOP.gov Chris is expect­ed to be at this address until 2012.

Please send let­ters of sup­port to Chris, Jonathan Paul, and all the oth­er pris­on­ers. Remind them they are not for­got­ten.

ELP Sup­port Net­work

+++++++++++++++++

Earth Lib­er­a­tion Pris­on­ers Sup­port Net­work
BM Box 2407
Lon­don
WC1N 3XX
Eng­land
www.spiritoffreedom.org.uk

Shoshone Defenders of Mount Tenabo Constructing Encampment (occupied North America)

Decem­ber 1, 2008
At some point today, sev­er­al men will begin con­struct­ing a per­ma­nent arbor on the South­ern flank of Mt. Ten­abo, where they will camp and mon­i­tor the Cana­di­an min­ing com­pa­ny Bar­rick Gold.

Shoshone protest placardShoshone mountain destructionDecem­ber 1, 2008
At some point today, sev­er­al men will begin con­struct­ing a per­ma­nent arbor on the South­ern flank of Mt. Ten­abo, where they will camp and mon­i­tor the Cana­di­an min­ing com­pa­ny Bar­rick Gold.

The encamp­ment was called on dur­ing last week’s protest, where Shoshone Grand­moth­ers and their sup­port­ers attempt­ed to con­front Bar­rick Gold and bring an end to the destruc­tion of the pin­ion for­est — which began almost imme­di­ate­ly after the com­pa­ny got approval to go ahead with its ‘Cortez Hills Expan­sion Project.’

A mas­sive cyanide heap leach gold mine, the project will ulti­mate­ly destroy approx­i­mate­ly 6,800 acres of land — frac­tur­ing along with it, the spir­i­tu­al life and cul­tur­al prac­tices of the Shoshone Peo­ple.

“This is our treaty land. It was a treaty made with the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment. It was not made with a for­eign nation. And it is a for­eign min­ing com­pa­ny that has come into our coun­try and is destroy­ing our moun­tain, our land, our food, our med­i­cine and they have no respect,” stat­ed one Grand­moth­er at the protest.

“…It can’t go on. It’s per­pe­trat­ing geno­cide against the Native Amer­i­can peo­ple. And we are not the only Native peo­ple suf­fer­ing this dis­tress,” said anoth­er. “It is hap­pen­ing world over; but we hap­pen to be West­ern Shoshon­es and this is our land and we’re protest­ing the poi­soned water, the destruc­tion of the land, the road we’re stand­ing on here, the big machines: every­thing that the min­ing indus­try stands for. They say they’re doing it respon­si­bly, but they’re not because when they leave the West­ern Shoshone peo­ple will still be here and the land will be bar­ren.”

To help make sure this doesn’t hap­pen, the West­ern Shoshone Defense Project (WSDP) asks that you help by mak­ing any of the fol­low­ing the dona­tions:

  1. 24 Nuts and Bolts (bolts need to be 1 foot in length with match­ing nuts)
  2. Gaso­line for saws and haul­ing costs.
  3. Food items such as eggs, bacon, meat, pota­toes, beans, etc. (includ­ing some sweets!)
  4. Helpers — to assist with con­struc­tion of arbor and for sup­port in the encamp­ment
  5. Mon­e­tary dona­tions for all of the above
  6. Moral sup­port and prayers

You can con­tact Joyce McDade for addi­tion­al infor­ma­tion, e‑mail: EJMcDade20@wmconnect.com

Happy Valley Occupation Celebration — Two Years! (Aotearoa/New Zealand)

SAVE HAPPY VALLEY!
OCCUPATION CELEBRATION — TWO YEARS!
THE WEEKEND OF FEBRUARY 2nd-3rd, 2008

SAVE HAPPY VALLEY!
OCCUPATION CELEBRATION — TWO YEARS!
THE WEEKEND OF FEBRUARY 2nd-3rd, 2008

You are invit­ed to the Save Hap­py Val­ley Coali­tion’s cel­e­bra­tion of our SECOND suc­cess­ful year of occu­py­ing Hap­py Val­ley. We have been con­tin­u­ous­ly occu­py­ing Hap­py Val­ley since Jan­u­ary 28th 2006 in order to pre­vent Sol­id Ener­gy from turn­ing it into an envi­ron­men­tal­ly dev­as­tat­ing open­cast coal-mine. Despite spies, 6000 snails from Augus­tus trans­ferred in ice­cream con­tain­ers, the destruc­tion of a near­by moun­tain, Sol­id Ener­gy’s plans for mas­sive expan­sion, and the Octo­ber 15th raids on activists, peo­ple have man­aged to keep Hap­py Val­ley safe so far! Yay for train track block­ades, film nights, alter­na­tives to min­er­als forums, demos, radio inter­views, every­one’s actions, and the OCCUPATION!

The Save Hap­py Val­ley Coali­tion, and any­one who wish­es to join us for the week­end cel­e­bra­tion, will be meet­ing at Les War­ren Park, in West­port, at 8am on Sat­ur­day 2nd Febu­rary 2008. (The major­i­ty of us will trav­el to West­port from Christchurch on the Fri­day night, car pool­ing can be arranged thru the coor­di­na­tor).

You will need all of your own tramping/camping gear and food, enough for the dura­tion of your intend­ed stay and you need to be pre­pared for unpre­dictable weath­er; rain; sun; hot and cold. This means that you must have have suit­able footwear, water­proof and warm cloth­ing, a sleep­ing bag and a tent (unless you have arranged to share with some­one else). An extend­ed gear list will be made avail­able to you when you con­firm plans with the occu­pa­tion coor­di­na­tor. If you do not have the required gear we may be able to pro­vide it for you, but please ensure that by the Fri­day you have the cor­rect gear.

We will be leav­ing the val­ley / return­ing to West­port on Sun­day the 3rd but it would be awe­some if you are able to stay longer in the val­ley!! Please let the coor­di­na­tor know.

We hope you can join us. Please RSVP so we can coor­di­nate eas­i­ly 🙂 Please let us know if you have any spe­cial needs that are of con­cern, we will be as accom­mo­dat­ing as pos­si­ble and we can pro­vide you with as much infor­ma­tion as you require.

For more infor­ma­tion please con­tact the occu­pa­tion coor­di­na­tor.

Thanks for your sup­port!

Frances Mar­tin
Occu­pa­tion Cel­e­bra­tion Coor­di­na­tor
frances.crayon@gmail.com
021 2037040

www.savehappyvalley.org.nz/occupation

If you can­not make it for this week­end but are able to vis­it the val­ley at anoth­er time please con­tact us! 🙂

York & Ainsty South Hunt Sabbed — Hunt Slash Tires Following Sab Success

26.12.2007
SABOTEURS FROM THE YORK HUNT SABS GROUP TODAY MONITORED THE YORK AND AINSTY SOUTH HUNT, SAVING LIVES AND CONFRONTING THEIR ILLEGAL ACTIONS

York & Ainsty South Hunt26.12.2007
SABOTEURS FROM THE YORK HUNT SABS GROUP TODAY MONITORED THE YORK AND AINSTY SOUTH HUNT, SAVING LIVES AND CONFRONTING THEIR ILLEGAL ACTIONS

York & Ain­sty South Hunt today met in Eas­ing­wold Mar­ket Square for their annu­al PR stunt and Box­ing Day Hunt. The Mas­ter put on a show whilst doing a speech, try­ing to act wel­com­ing to the “antis” and rant­ed how they should be tol­er­at­ed as the hunt always wel­comes oppos­ing views. Whilst he was busy talk­ing to the sup­port­ers, hunt sabs fed the hounds dog bis­cuits to make them more respon­sive to mon­i­tors in the field and laid a non-harm­ful cit­ronel­la scent which stops them smelling fox­es. The two police offi­cers present had already told peo­ple they would­n’t be fol­low­ing the Y&AS to enforce the ban.

As they set off, to a slow start, the mas­ter became very intol­er­ant and raised his whip to hit a sab as more cit­ronel­la was laid in front of the hounds — fun­ny how their atti­tude changes when there’s no pub­lic round.

About an hour in, the hunt begun flush­ing cov­ers with a full pack of hounds — some­thing which is ille­gal under the hunt­ing bill — and there was no drag any­where in the area, nor seen through­out the day. As hounds went into cry, sabs were on the oth­er­side of the cov­er ready to get between the fox and hunt pack when they broke cov­er and went into chase. Fol­low­ing this, sabs made howls (a noise made by fol­low­ers if a fox is seen) to dis­tract the hunt mas­ter who was unaware of the sabs on the oth­er­side. He then began ral­ly­ing the hounds towards the direc­tion of the noise and encour­ag­ing them, only to be caught on video cam­era by the mon­i­tors when he, and the full pack of hounds, broke cov­er. Fox bur­rows in the woods were filled in — some­thing done the morn­ing of the hunt so no chased ani­mals can get down the holes — this makes them eas­i­er to find, chase and kill as they have nowhere to hide. After this, the mas­ter (who coin­ci­den­tal­ly claimed to be legal­ly hunt­ing in his ear­li­er speech!) was asked about the ban and points of law were put to him as he was being filmed; his reply — a mid­dle fin­ger and mut­ter­ing of “Fuck Off”. This was then changed to point­ing and say­ing he’ll speak lat­er when he realised he was being filmed.

They then moved onto anoth­er, big­ger cov­er and did the same but chased a fox. Due to sabs’ inter­ven­tion and lay­ing of cit­ronel­la, two chased roe deer and fox­es escaped from the hounds. Due to the cov­er­ing of the scent by mon­i­tors, the pack was con­fused and the hunt moved on to try and avoid being filmed break­ing the law. The land own­er then came to escort sabs out of the cov­er and was con­front­ed about his allowance of an ille­gal activ­i­ty occur­ring on his land; unable to answer he began rant­i­ng on about tres­pass and tried grab­bing the video cam­eras.

Lat­er on as the Y&AS head­ed back towards Eas­ing­wold to pack up, hunt sup­port­ers slashed two tires on the land rover used by sabs — obvi­ous­ly in envy of their days lack of suc­cess and sabs dis­rupt­ing their ille­gal hunt.

THE YORK AND AINSTY SOUTH, LIKE MANY OTHER HUNTS, ARE CLAIMING IN THE PRESS THEY CONTINUE TO HUNT WITHIN THE LAW. THIS IS NOW EXPOSED AS A LIE. WE WILL CONTINUE TO MONITOR HUNTS WITHIN THE AREA AND INTERVENE, SAVE LIES AND ENFORCE THE LAW.

YORK HUNT SABS

http://www.huntsabs.org.uk

December’s Greek round-up of bank, cash machine & Group 4‑Wackenhut vehicle attacks

Arson at a bank’s ATM (Athens, 24/12/2007)

Source (greek only-page bot­tom): http://www.enet.gr/online/online_text/c=112,id=91228912

At 4:43 in the morn­ing, the ATM of a Kyprou Bank sub­sidiary in cen­tral Athens, was set on fire. There was no respon­si­bil­i­ty claim.

Arson at a bank’s ATM (Athens, 24/12/2007)

Source (greek only-page bot­tom): http://www.enet.gr/online/online_text/c=112,id=91228912

At 4:43 in the morn­ing, the ATM of a Kyprou Bank sub­sidiary in cen­tral Athens, was set on fire. There was no respon­si­bil­i­ty claim.
–
Molo­tov cock­tail attack against secu­ri­ty vehi­cles (Athens, 24/12/2007)

Source (greek only): Eleft­herotyp­ia — http://www.enet.gr/online/online_text/c=112,id=91228912

Accord­ing to “Eleft­herotyp­ia news­pa­per report the “Rev­o­lu­tion­ary Attack Groups” (Epanas­ta­tikes Omades Epithe­sis) claim respon­so­bil­i­ty for the arsons of “Group 4 Securi­cor” vehi­cles in Kolonos, Athens. “On Dec. 24 we attacked the pri­vate guard com­pa­ny “Group 4‑Wackenhut” head­quar­ters destroy­ing around 15 vehi­cles used in mon­ey trans­fers. This com­pa­ny, apart from own­ing pri­vate pris­ons in Amer­i­ca and Eng­land, in our coun­try con­sti­tutes the most impor­tant piece of the grow­ing police-like corp of secu­ri­ty pro­fes­sion­als that floods the streets, breed­ing the big broth­er shov­ing cam­eras, cir­cu­lat­ing the banks’ wealth and guard­ing diverse cap­i­tal­ist tar­gets con­tribut­ing in the increas­ing social con­trol and repres­sion.”
They also men­tion:
“The mes­sage here is clear. When deal­ing with the rage of insur­gents they can­not be safe, even in their head­quar­ters. Our attack was an action of sol­i­dar­i­ty to our empris­oned com­rades: Gian­nis Dim­i­trakis, Gior­gos Vout­sis-Vogiatzis, Mar­ios Tsoura­pas, Chris­sos­to­mos Kon­tore­vithakis, Vagge­lis Botzatzis as well as to the pris­on­ers of the Rev­o­lu­tion­ary Organ­i­sa­tion Novem­ber 17 that are being kept under a state of total iso­la­tion. It is an action of sol­i­dar­i­ty to the insur­gent pris­on­ers of April, many of whom face tor­ture and con­stant trans­fers. It all con­tin­ues…”
–
Police cam­era sup­ply box on fire (Thes­sa­loni­ki, 21/12/2007)

Accord­ing to reports at http://athens.indymedia.org/front.php3?lang=el&article_id=807773 a group of indi­vid­u­als set on fire a police cam­era pow­er sup­ply box, on Ethikis Amy­nis Street, Thes­sa­loni­ki.
–
Arson at an Empo­ri­ki Bank (Volos, 21/12/2007)

Source: (greek only-page bot­tom: http://www.taxydromos.gr/article_detail.asp?node_serial=001001&node_id=2&article_id=7803)

Uniden­ti­fied per­sons caused a gas can­is­ter explo­sion at a bank sub­sidiary in Volos, around 4:30 in the morn­ing, at Empo­ri­ki Bank on Iolk­ou and Kon­stan­ta street, caus­ing dam­ages to the bank’s ATM. Police sus­pects indi­vid­u­als from the city’s anti­au­thor­i­tar­i­an milieu.
–

Potatoes to Heavy Industry — Xmas blockade in Iceland with video

24 Decem­ber 2007
On Sat­ur­day nine ‘jólasveinar’ wan­dered into the Hell­isheiði Pow­er­plant by Mount Hengill, express­ing their oppo­si­tion to the rise of heavy indus­try and oth­er nature dev­as­tat­ing activ­i­ties in Ice­land, as well as sol­i­dar­i­ty with human nature con­ser­va­tion­ists. (The jolasveinar are 13 Ice­landic san­tas, born of a child-eat­ing troll moth­er, who descend from the moun­tains in the days before christ­mas to sneak through the hous­es, steal­ing, teas­ing and caus­ing mis­chief.)

Jule Lads action24 Decem­ber 2007
On Sat­ur­day nine ‘jólasveinar’ wan­dered into the Hell­isheiði Pow­er­plant by Mount Hengill, express­ing their oppo­si­tion to the rise of heavy indus­try and oth­er nature dev­as­tat­ing activ­i­ties in Ice­land, as well as sol­i­dar­i­ty with human nature con­ser­va­tion­ists. (The jolasveinar are 13 Ice­landic san­tas, born of a child-eat­ing troll moth­er, who descend from the moun­tains in the days before christ­mas to sneak through the hous­es, steal­ing, teas­ing and caus­ing mis­chief.)

“We decid­ed to take a stroll by there before com­ing to town, and give out rot­ten pota­toes to the naughty indus­tri­al­ists, and maybe a gift or two to the work­ers that do their jobs bad­ly” said Pot­taske­fill (Pot scraper) on behalf of the group. Naughty Ice­landic chil­dren such as these tra­di­tion­al­ly get a rot­ten pota­to in their christ­mas shoe.

–
The Jule Lads, Nordic trolls who’s tra­di­tion pre­ceed Father Christ­mas, descend­ed upon a geot­her­mal pow­er sta­tion which is being enlarged to pow­er the enlarge­ment of an alu­mini­um smelt­ing fac­to­ry by RUSAL/Nordural. Hengill was once a beau­ti­ful moun­tain range, at the edge of a high­ly vol­canic area in Ice­land, a ski resort pep­pered with nat­ur­al hot pools and steam­ing rocks. Now it is noth­ing but a scream­ing fac­to­ry.

The Jule lads join up for a spe­cial direct action with the Sav­ing Ice­land col­lec­tive as they left to town… the video can be found here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rfY5Ou31SWE

Please con­sid­er com­ing out to Ice­land for our 2008 action camp, we need all the help from activists we can get. This island is Europe’s last wilder­ness and with huge dams, geot­her­mal pow­er plants, pow­er lines, tar­mac roads, pol­lut­ing fac­to­ries, not to men­tion all the ter­ri­ble affects on the sur­round­ing sea, and a whole host of oth­er forms of destruc­tion.

More pho­tos at:
http://www.savingiceland.org/node/1077

rampART losses possesion case but buys two more weeks

20.12.2007
Today the ram­pART social cen­tre lost in court against a claim for pos­ses­sion. A pos­ses­sion order will now be grant­ed although not until the 3rd Jan 2008.

WOULD YOU LIKE TO RECEIVE NEWS ALERTS ABOUT LONDON SOCIAL CENTRES?

20.12.2007
Today the ram­pART social cen­tre lost in court against a claim for pos­ses­sion. A pos­ses­sion order will now be grant­ed although not until the 3rd Jan 2008.

WOULD YOU LIKE TO RECEIVE NEWS ALERTS ABOUT LONDON SOCIAL CENTRES?
Text ‘fol­low lon­don­scn’ to 07624801423 then reply with a name as instruct­ed.

If you are inter­est­ed in mak­ing sure there are new social cen­tres to fill the void, please come along to the meet­ing on the 6th. (more details clos­er to the time).

In the mean­time, in their last newslet­ter, the ram­pART col­lec­tive made a call out for help sort­ing out RAMpart2 (toward bot­tom below)…

The whole out of the blue evic­tion threat smacks of a vin­dic­tive puni­tive reac­tion to the cam­paign of objec­tion against the pro­posed demo­li­tion of the hous­es next to the social cen­ter. It turns out that the so-called new own­ers of the hous­es are in fact a whol­ly owned sub­sidiary of the ‘pre­vi­ous own­er’, the Ram­part Trust Co Ltd that still owns the ware­house which the social cen­ter occu­pies. Even though there is no plan­ning per­mis­sion in place or applied for in rela­tion to the social cen­tre, they claim that they intend to start demo­li­tion in Jan/Feb 2008. Obvi­ous­ly this is impos­si­ble and they know it, so their attempt to have us evict­ed is not real­ly because of any impend­ing work in the new year.

Speak­ing of plan­ning, it is still pos­si­ble to lodge objec­tions against the pro­posed new hous­es on the site of the exist­ing hous­es. The offi­cer deal­ing with the case is cur­rent­ly on leave and so the con­sul­ta­tion peri­od has appar­ent­ly not been closed. If you’ve not yet writ­ten and espe­cial­ly if your address is one in Tow­er­ham­lets, then please write a let­ter per­haps object­ing to the pro­pos­al on the grounds that it involved a demo­li­tion inside the con­ser­va­tion zone and the new con­struc­tion will total­ly change the char­ac­ter of this piece of east end her­itage. You might also men­tion that the own­er is on record as plan­ning to make an appli­ca­tion relat­ing to the build­ing next door and there­fore the devel­op­ment should be con­sid­ered as a whole to real­ly under­stand the visu­al impact that the changes cur­rent­ly pro­posed might have.

As well as pro­vid­ing your name and address, you need to clear­ly spec­i­fy in the sub­ject the appli­ca­tion num­ber PA/07/02707 and the fact that the let­ter is for OBJECTION (eg. sub­ject : Objec­tion to Appli­ca­tion PA/07/02707 — 7–11a Ram­part Street)

All the objec­tion let­ter can be sent to Ben­son Olaseni, who will cir­cu­late the let­ter to Simon Ryan the case offi­cer.

Here is the email : benson.olaseni@towerhamlets.gov.uk

You might be inter­est­ed to know that the solic­i­tors work­ing for the own­er in their claim to have us evict­ed are Brech­er Solic­i­tors who are at Heron Place, 3 George Street, Lon­don ( admin@brecher.co.uk, 02075631000) and give that address as the care of address for the co-claimants, the Ram­part Trust Com­pa­ny Ltd (owned by Mr Wolfe) and RMO Devel­op­ments Ltd (owned by Ram­part Trust Co. Ltd)

While they keep their address­es off the claim, an inter­net search pro­vides the fol­low­ing info.

RAMPART TRUST CO LIMITED (Reg­is­tered No. 00394626)
27 NORRICE LEA, LONDON, N2 0RD

Rmo Devel­op­ments Ltd. (Reg­is­tra­tion Num­ber: 6183351)
Mow­bray House, 58/70 Edg­ware Way
Edg­ware Mid­dle­sex HA8 8DJ

A lit­tle over a year ago, a prop­er­ty com­pa­ny sent some­body called Richard Sel­by to vis­it the build­ings with Mr Wolfe, the ben­e­fi­cia­ry of the Ram­part Trust — appar­ent­ly to show a financier around for the pur­pos­es of a val­u­a­tion. Coin­ci­den­tal­ly this Her­itage Group (020 8958 0000 info@heritagegroup.co.uk) actu­al­ly shares the same address as RMO Devel­op­ments Ltd.

The agent act­ing for the own­er in all deal­ings relat­ing to the pro­posed devel­op­ments is Alan Camp Archi­tects ( +44 (0)20 7593 1000 mail@alancamp.com 88 Union Street Lon­don SE1 0NW). They’ve also had the involve­ment of Miller Prop­er­ty Con­sul­tants (17 Hog­a­rth Avenue, Brent­wood, Essex CM15 8BE 01277 233 100 / 07957 544 007 advice@millerproperty.co.uk).

I’m sure that in some coun­tries there would be hordes of angry direct action anar­chist types and cyber hack­ers caus­ing obstruc­tion and dis­rup­tion to the evil ones but here things are usu­al­ly done dif­fer­ent­ly. We are mak­ing a call out for the fol­low­ing…

Offers of vans and dri­vers for trans­port when we have to move out.

Ideas and offers of stor­age space for the resources in the ram­pART

Noti­fi­ca­tion of emp­ties for future new social cen­tres

Mobile phone num­bers of those will­ing to drop every­thing to come defend the space.

Vol­un­teers for peo­ple to rec­cy and access short­list­ed build­ings

Mobile num­bers of peo­ple up for ini­tial­ly hold­ing down a new­ly opened build­ing.

A signup sheet of those up for help­ing clean up and fix up such a build­ing.

A list of those peo­ple either want­i­ng to act as live in ‘care tak­ers’ or those up for being on an occu­pa­tion rota.

email ram­part at mutu­alaid dot org

We are also organ­is­ing a meet­ing which aims to breath new life into open­ing not just one new space to replace the ram­pART but ini­ti­ate a lon­don social cen­tres col­lec­tive which would try to ensure that there are plen­ty of social cen­tres, prefer­able through­out Lon­don on an ongo­ing basis.

It will take place 2pm Sun­day 6th Jan 08
please pass the word and come along if this inter­ests you.

Aldermaston bike ride March 2008

Bikes against the bomb!
Bike ride March 22nd-26th 2008

Bikes not bombs are plan­ning a bike ride from Lon­don to Alder­mas­ton Atom­ic Weapons Estab­lish­ment and back again, as part of the 50th anniver­sary cel­e­bra­tions of the first Alder­mas­ton march

Bikes against the bomb!
Bike ride March 22nd-26th 2008

Bikes not bombs are plan­ning a bike ride from Lon­don to Alder­mas­ton Atom­ic Weapons Estab­lish­ment and back again, as part of the 50th anniver­sary cel­e­bra­tions of the first Alder­mas­ton march

The bike ride is expect­ed to take 4 days (22nd March – 26th March 2008). If you would be inter­est­ed in attend­ing, or even bet­ter, in help­ing to organ­ise it, then please email info@bikesnotbombs.org.uk .

Fifty years on from the first Alder­mas­ton march, anti-nuclear cam­paign­ers need to work quick­ly to halt the tri­dent replace­ment. Alder­mas­ton atom­ic weapons estab­lish­ment is now build­ing research facil­i­ties to build the next gen­er­a­tion of nukes, despite this being ille­gal under the inter­na­tion­al non-pro­lif­er­a­tion treaty. Grab your bikes and come and help us stop them.

More than 5000 peo­ple are expect­ed to attend the sur­round the base event at Alder­mas­ton on the 24th March and we will form part of the bike block.

The bike ride will take an active role in anti-arms trade activ­i­ties

The first organ­is­ing meet­ing will be at the Lon­don Action Resource Cen­tre (LARC) on Jan­u­ary 26th, at 2 p.m.

For more info please con­tact info@bikesnotbombs.org.uk

For direc­tions to LARC

62 Fieldgate Street, Whitechapel, Lon­don E1 1ES. http://www.remotegoat.co.uk/venue_view.php?uid=20591 for direc­tions

http://www.bikesnotbombs.org.uk

Shell to Sea protesters scale government building to reach Minister’s Office

Wednes­day Decem­ber 19, 2007

A small group of Shell to Sea activists scaled the heights of the Depart­ment of Nat­ur­al Resources today, to place a ban­ner read­ing PROTECT IRISH NATURAL RESOURCES on the bal­cony out­side Eamon Ryan’s office.

Natural Resources Department roof-top occupationWednes­day Decem­ber 19, 2007

A small group of Shell to Sea activists scaled the heights of the Depart­ment of Nat­ur­al Resources today, to place a ban­ner read­ing PROTECT IRISH NATURAL RESOURCES on the bal­cony out­side Eamon Ryan’s office.

Split­ting into two small teams, the pro­test­ers used advice from Green­Peace to dis­tract the secu­ri­ty and gain access to the Min­is­ter’s top floor office and leave a mes­sage for him.

This action was car­ried out to bring to pub­lic atten­tion the gov­ern­men­t’s sup­port for every aspect of the Ross­port pipeline/refinery scheme, and the give­away of Irish Nat­ur­al resources to multi­na­tion­al com­pa­nies like Shell, with no last­ing ben­e­fit for peo­ple in Ire­land. The Green par­ty have now had a full term of the Dáil to hon­our their elec­tion promis­es, but sad­ly, their end of term report is is marked FAIL.

None of the gas or oil in the wells off the west­ern coast of Ire­land will belong to the state, since the gov­ern­ment still plans to give it all away for free to pri­vate com­pa­nies. The recent changes to licens­ing agree­ments won’t apply to the eight bil­lion euro Cor­rib project, and don’t amount to a seri­ous stake for the peo­ple of Ire­land in their own nat­ur­al resources, 100 per cent of which is still being giv­en away to com­pa­nies like Shell and Sta­toil.

None of the mon­ey from these fos­sil fuels will be invest­ed in renew­able sources of ener­gy like wind and wave pow­er, and no thought has been giv­en to the impact that the exploita­tion of these resources will have on cli­mate change.

Áine, one of the Shell to Sea pro­tes­tors, said “The gov­ern­men­t’s supine sup­port for the oil com­pa­nies shows that they pri­ori­tise the wel­fare of Shell share­hold­ers over the well­be­ing of their own cit­i­zens. Shell are being allowed to keep all the gas and sell it to the high­est bid­der, almost cer­tain­ly in Britain. The refin­ing of 4 mil­lion euro worth of raw gas per day will clear­ly degrade the envi­ron­ment, both local­ly for the peo­ple of Mayo, and also in terms of car­bon diox­ide emis­sions when the gas is used. From an Irish point of view, we would be bet­ter off leav­ing the gas where it is, under the sea.”

Shell to Sea pro­tes­tors have also point­ed out that the gov­ern­men­t’s dou­ble talk on cli­mate change can be clear­ly seen when they are sup­port­ing the con­struc­tion of a raw gas refin­ery, and say they are hop­ing for fur­ther exploita­tion of fos­sil fuels in the Atlantic mar­gin.

ÁÍne con­tin­ued: “Until sup­ply-side solu­tions are put in place, the con­tin­u­ing exploita­tion of fos­sil fuels will be adding to car­bon diox­ide emis­sions which is caus­ing cli­mate change. Any pos­si­ble ben­e­fit from this is lost because the gas and oil are sim­ply hand­ed over to the big cor­po­ra­tions. The peo­ple of Ire­land will see no advan­tage, either envi­ron­men­tal or finan­cial, from their own gas and oil resources.”

“Mean­while the cor­po­ra­tions which will see huge prof­its from Irish resources, seek to use the cheap­est and most dan­ger­ous way of exploit­ing them. Our gov­ern­ment is hap­py to see lives of peo­ple in Ire­land put at risk by the use of an onshore pipeline and refin­ery in Mayo, sim­ply to max­imise returns for Shell share­hold­ers. ”

Relat­ed Link: http://www.shelltosea.com

Short haul flight Manchester adverts cancelled

18.12.2007
Shock­ing U‑turn from short-haul car­ri­er!

Appar­ent­ly, Fly­Be has spot­ted the errors of their ways and can­celled their short-haul sum­mer routes. Bra­vo Fly­Be!

Domestic flights advert cancelled18.12.2007
Shock­ing U‑turn from short-haul car­ri­er!

Appar­ent­ly, Fly­Be has spot­ted the errors of their ways and can­celled their short-haul sum­mer routes. Bra­vo Fly­Be!

All they need now is to con­vince their mates Ryanair, Easy­jet, et al. that short-haul avi­a­tion is unsus­tain­able and head­ing us towards run-away cli­mate change.