Dublin Shell to Sea – Bringing it all Back Home

Day of Action — They deserve it and you deserve bet­ter

On the 18th of May Dublin Shell to Sea is going to esca­late its cam­paign against Shell’s com­mand cen­tre – Cor­rib house on Lee­son Street with anoth­er day of action start­ing at 7.30 am sharp. This attempt to shut down Shell’s HQ, like our last day of action (http://www.indymedia.ie/article/82200), is being called to high­light the incred­i­ble theft of our nat­ur­al resources that totals 51 bil­lion euros in the Cor­rib field alone. This is only pos­si­ble with your help; we encour­age every­one to come along.

1st Dublin Shell Day of Action 1
1st Dublin Shell Day of Action 2
Day of Action — They deserve it and you deserve bet­ter

On the 18th of May Dublin Shell to Sea is going to esca­late its cam­paign against Shell’s com­mand cen­tre – Cor­rib house on Lee­son Street with anoth­er day of action start­ing at 7.30 am sharp. This attempt to shut down Shell’s HQ, like our last day of action (http://www.indymedia.ie/article/82200), is being called to high­light the incred­i­ble theft of our nat­ur­al resources that totals 51 bil­lion euros in the Cor­rib field alone. This is only pos­si­ble with your help; we encour­age every­one to come along.

Dublin Shell HQ mapFuel Pover­ty – A Nation­al Scan­dal
Ire­land is cur­rent­ly fac­ing a cri­sis. Our health ser­vice verges on the brink of col­lapse as our nurs­es are forced to strike for decent work­ing con­di­tions. Our politi­cians have told us they can’t give in, in fear we all might ask for decent con­di­tions.

We have been con­stant­ly remind­ed in the elec­tion cam­paign about how much we owe our politi­cians. We are told the Celtic Tiger has brought untold rich­es and this coun­try is now awash with mon­ey. This is true to a cer­tain extent. More mon­ey has been gen­er­at­ed and emi­gra­tion has stopped. But still all is far from per­fect in this coun­try. Mon­ey has been wast­ed and the great­est give­away is hap­pen­ing as we speak. 51 bil­lion euros of our nat­ur­al gas reserves is being giv­en to Shell, Marathon and Sta­toil (for more info on deal see http://www.publicinquiry.ie/reports.php). Whilst these fig­ures are often too big to con­tem­plate, it is some­times eas­i­er to look at who is being direct­ly affect­ed. As usu­al it is those who need help most who will be affect­ed worst.

Unbe­liev­ably, each win­ter, up to 3,000 peo­ple die pre­ma­ture­ly every year from fuel pover­ty (‘The Poten­tial Health Ben­e­fits of Improv­ing House­hold Ener­gy Effi­cien­cy’ Clinch and Healy 2000 and Help The Aged., source: http://www.eirigi.org/campaigns/naturalresources/fuel_p…y.htm). This is our par­ents and grand­par­ents who are dying. What is our politi­cians’ response to this? Instead of try­ing to solve the prob­lem they gave away the one thing that could alle­vi­ate the prob­lem – nat­ur­al gas. Above all else nat­ur­al gas could have ensured that three thou­sand peo­ple lived out their lives, but they chose to give it away instead (http://www.publicinquiry.ie/reports.php).

Roy­al Dutch Shell A.G.M. in The Hague
Whilst our politi­cians are to blame they are not the only ones. Shell, Sta­toil and Marathon are the thieves in this sit­u­a­tion and are mak­ing away with enor­mous amounts of our resources. This week one of the thieves, Shell, will cel­e­brate their grotesque prof­its at their A. G.M. in Hol­land. It’s quite telling that the only place that Shell’s board of direc­tors can be held to account (if you are rich) is in a con­fer­ence hall in The Hague. We the right­ful ben­e­fi­cia­ries of the nat­ur­al gas deposits off our west coast won’t have a say.

The new ben­e­fi­cia­ries are peo­ple like the Queen of Hol­land (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queen_Beatrice) Lord Kerr of Kin­lochard (also direc­tor of Rio Tin­to, Jeroen van der Veer, Lin­da Cook, Andy Pyle and Ter­ry Nolan (for oth­er mem­bers of Shell’s board of direc­tors see (http://www.search.shell.com/cgi-bin/rsearch.cgi). Through­out this week Roy­al Dutch Shell will wine and dine the glob­al elite and divide out 51 bil­lion euros of our mon­ey.
At this meet­ing the rest of Shell’s share­hold­ers will get the chance to see how their invest­ments are doing and decide what to do with €51 bil­lion they stole from you and Shell’s exec­u­tives this year will no doubt have a nice cig­ar and cham­pagne at your expense.

These men and women with their suits and brief­cas­es will sit smug in The Hague with their caviar in the knowl­edge that they have ripped off a coun­try that needs its resources bad­ly — Our health ser­vice verges on the brink of col­lapse as our nurs­es are forced to strike for a decent wage, our elder­ly now live in fear of Win­ter as up to 3000 peo­ple die each year from fuel pover­ty and pen­sions are being pri­va­tised.

What you can do?
But all is not doom and gloom, on Fri­day the 18th just as Shell’s Irish elite arrive back hav­ing giv­en away our resources to the glob­al rich. Dublin Shell to Sea plans to greet these peo­ple by shut­ting down their Irish nerve cen­tre and head­quar­ters – Cor­rib House. This is the build­ing where all deci­sions are tak­en, where they hatched the plans to steal our resources and tar­get the Mayo com­mu­ni­ties in their relent­less pur­suit of prof­it. So come and join us in protest­ing against these crim­i­nals and block­ade their offices on Fri­day the 18th of May – they deserve it and you deserve bet­ter!

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

Squatted Community Garden Opening Day — Sat 19th May — Reading!

“COMMON GROUND”
(Read­ing Squat­ted Com­mu­ni­ty Gar­den)
** OPENING DAY! **

SATURDAY MAY 19TH,
1pm till Late!
** BBQ, live acoustic music and dance exhi­bi­tion by local kids from 6pm! **

“COMMON GROUND”
(Read­ing Squat­ted Com­mu­ni­ty Gar­den)
** OPENING DAY! **

SATURDAY MAY 19TH,
1pm till Late!
** BBQ, live acoustic music and dance exhi­bi­tion by local kids from 6pm! **

A group of anti-cap­i­tal­ists in Read­ing have cre­at­ed a beau­ti­ful gar­den from a squat­ted piece of derelict land for our com­mu­ni­ty to use and enjoy. On Sat­ur­day 19th May we will be open­ing to the pub­lic for the first time, hope to see you there!

Lim­it­ed acco­mo­da­tion is avail­able, 1st come 1st serve — please let us know asap, thanx!

The entrance is through the alley­way, next to the Wom­ens Infor­ma­tion Cen­tre, Sil­ver Street, Cen­tral Read­ing, UK. We are 10mins walk from train sta­tion.

“Any­thing is pos­si­ble when we take the ini­tia­tive”

For fur­ther infor­ma­tion please email rgacollective(AT)hotmail.co.uk

New cars smashed while on transportation by train

Since the G8 in Gle­nea­gles 2005 there has been sab­o­tage on 3 dif­fer­ent dates, with esti­mat­ed dam­age about £200,000 plus,bristol indy­media has been spared the post­ings for legal rea­sons.

Since the G8 in Gle­nea­gles 2005 there has been sab­o­tage on 3 dif­fer­ent dates, with esti­mat­ed dam­age about £200,000 plus,bristol indy­media has been spared the post­ings for legal rea­sons.

EAST KENT EARTH FIRST!

This report announces the for­ma­tion of a new cam­paign­ing and action group to be called EAST KENT EARTH FIRST!

The group is based in Can­ter­bury, but already has sup­port from peo­ple in the Med­way Towns, Sit­ting­bourne, Herne Bay and Thanet as well as Can­ter­bury. Most of the peo­ple involved have a back­ground in the Ani­mal Rights move­ment and recog­nise the need to broad­en out into Eco Action and relat­ed issues. Be it GM crops, Air­port expan­sion, unnec­es­sary devel­op­ment, or diverse oth­er issues we shall seek to edu­cate, inform and protest, notwith­stand­ing the cur­rent clam­p­down on rea­son­able protest. There will short­ly be a web­site up and run­ning, but in the mean­time any­one inter­est­ed in being involved should

This report announces the for­ma­tion of a new cam­paign­ing and action group to be called EAST KENT EARTH FIRST!

The group is based in Can­ter­bury, but already has sup­port from peo­ple in the Med­way Towns, Sit­ting­bourne, Herne Bay and Thanet as well as Can­ter­bury. Most of the peo­ple involved have a back­ground in the Ani­mal Rights move­ment and recog­nise the need to broad­en out into Eco Action and relat­ed issues. Be it GM crops, Air­port expan­sion, unnec­es­sary devel­op­ment, or diverse oth­er issues we shall seek to edu­cate, inform and protest, notwith­stand­ing the cur­rent clam­p­down on rea­son­able protest. There will short­ly be a web­site up and run­ning, but in the mean­time any­one inter­est­ed in being involved should
con­tact the fol­low­ing email address. mattclowes@riseup.net

Video — You Plant, We Dig

Short video of the April 21st anti-GM ral­ly and pic­nic that end­ed with the attempt­ed under­plant­i­ng of organ­ic pota­toes in a field thought to be ear­marked for a BASF GM pota­to crop tri­al in Hedon near Hull.

Short video of the April 21st anti-GM ral­ly and pic­nic that end­ed with the attempt­ed under­plant­i­ng of organ­ic pota­toes in a field thought to be ear­marked for a BASF GM pota­to crop tri­al in Hedon near Hull.

8 mins, 19mb, H264 encod­ed

See also www.mutatoes.org

Plane Stupid Callout for Local Groups

Plane Stu­pid (www.planestupid.com) is call­ing out for local Plane Stu­pid groups to form to fight the fastest grow­ing cause of cli­mate change (avi­a­tion) in your area. Plane Stu­pid thinks that local groups tak­ing action in their area but with­in a wider net­work of Plane Stu­pid activists is the best way to fight the unsus­tain­able growth of the avi­a­tion indus­try. If you would like to set up a group in your area all you need is a few enthu­si­as­tic mem­bers com­mit­ted to using direct action to fight cli­mate change.

Plane Stupid plane fist logoPlane Stu­pid (www.planestupid.com) is call­ing out for local Plane Stu­pid groups to form to fight the fastest grow­ing cause of cli­mate change (avi­a­tion) in your area. Plane Stu­pid thinks that local groups tak­ing action in their area but with­in a wider net­work of Plane Stu­pid activists is the best way to fight the unsus­tain­able growth of the avi­a­tion indus­try. If you would like to set up a group in your area all you need is a few enthu­si­as­tic mem­bers com­mit­ted to using direct action to fight cli­mate change.

The 2003 Avi­a­tion White Paper out­lines plans for between dou­ble and triple the cur­rent num­ber of pas­sen­ger flights. This involves mas­sive air­port expan­sion all over Britain at rate equiv­a­lent to the build­ing of a new Heathrow every 5 years. The UK’s top cli­ma­tol­o­gists pre­dict that avi­a­tion’s emis­sions alone are pre­dict­ed to exceed the gov­ern­men­t’s tar­get for the coun­try’s entire out­put of green­house gas­es in 2050 by around 134%. (Tyn­dall Cen­tre for Cli­mate
Chan­g­eRe­search)

Plane Stu­pid has become one of the direct action groups of the emerg­ing grass­roots cli­mate move­ment in Britain. Our dra­mat­ic impact has come by means of a series of high-pro­file direct actions and a near obses­sive focus on clear, basic demands that peo­ple under­stand: the scrap­ping of air­port expan­sion plans, a tax on air­craft fuel and
plane tick­ets, and an end to unnec­es­sary and unsus­tain­able short haul flights.

Since we formed in less than 18 months ago; we have dis­rupt­ed the world’s largest inter­na­tion­al avi­a­tion indus­try con­fer­ence in Cen­tral Lon­don; ground­ed planes through the occu­pa­tion of a taxi­way at the short-haul East Mid­lands Air­port; blocked the entrance to BAA’s head­quar­ters at Heathrow twice; staged a roof-top protest at easy­Jet’s cor­po­rate head­quar­ters in Lon­don, tem­porar­i­ly shut down tens of trav­el agents across the UK and helped angry Heathrow res­i­dents dis­rupt the trans­port min­is­ter’s speech. We also inspired and over­saw Britain’s first nation­al day of action against short haul flights, which saw local groups hold demon­stra­tions at six region­al air­ports and out­side Flight Cen­tre trav­el agents in cities across the UK.

Gov­ern­ment and indus­try’s prof­i­teer­ing from cre­at­ing cat­a­stroph­ic cli­mate change will go unchecked unless YOU do some­thing today! Join us by set­ting up a local group with some like mind­ed peo­ple in your area to help us scrap air­port expan­sion, get avi­a­tion fuel and tick­ets taxed and end­ing short haul flights.

Con­tact info@planestupid.com or call 07948 219 493 for advice on set­ting up a local group or for some­one to come and speak in your area about Plane Stu­pid. Also on the 12th and 13th of May we will be at the Cam­paign against Cli­mate Change con­fer­ence in Lon­don (http://www.campaigncc.org/) where you can come and speak to us.

www.planestupid.com
info@planestupid.com

G8 Bike Caravan Action Nijmegen

7.05.2007 — Today a bicy­cle demo against the G8 was held in Nijmegen, Hol­land..

Today the bicy­cle demo against the G8 was a suc­cess. Despite the pour­ing rain and the absence of the major­i­ty of the inter­na­tion­al bicy­cle car­a­van, there were still 30 cyclists ready for action. Sev­er­al loca­tions that had some con­nec­tion with the G8 pol­i­tics were vis­it­ed by bike for some good-spir­it­ed demon­strat­ing . Unlike in Utrecht the police was wise enough not to show up. Tonight the rest of the car­a­van will arrive in Nijmegen, where the cyclists will stop for the night. Tomor­row the car­a­van will con­tin­ue towards Ger­many, where the G8 sum­mit will take place from 6th to 8th of june, in Heili­gen­damm.

7.05.2007 — Today a bicy­cle demo against the G8 was held in Nijmegen, Hol­land..

Today the bicy­cle demo against the G8 was a suc­cess. Despite the pour­ing rain and the absence of the major­i­ty of the inter­na­tion­al bicy­cle car­a­van, there were still 30 cyclists ready for action. Sev­er­al loca­tions that had some con­nec­tion with the G8 pol­i­tics were vis­it­ed by bike for some good-spir­it­ed demon­strat­ing . Unlike in Utrecht the police was wise enough not to show up. Tonight the rest of the car­a­van will arrive in Nijmegen, where the cyclists will stop for the night. Tomor­row the car­a­van will con­tin­ue towards Ger­many, where the G8 sum­mit will take place from 6th to 8th of june, in Heili­gen­damm.

The first stop was made at the local Mcdon­alds. This was sur­round­ed by the cyclists and the entrance road to the mcdrive was blocked with fences.This fast food chain is a sym­bol of exploita­tion of work­ers and envi­ron­ment in third world coun­tries by the rich west­ern soci­ety.

Of course Beren­don­ck was also vis­it­ed. Here, envi­ron­men­tal groups and local nature enjoy­ers are resist­ing the expan­sion of the golf ter­rain, into a valu­able for­est and lake area. The activsts reclaimed the pub­lic space by plac­ing signs pro­claim­ing “This is not a Golf State / Free access recre­ation­al area”. Trees were plant­ed in the holes, and there was a game of foot­ball. Like Beren­don­ck is wast­ed for a small group of rich peo­ple, the same goes for the G8 — on a world wide scale.

The last action was at the local head­quar­ters of the marechaussee (immi­gra­tion police). The gates to the build­ing were locked from the out­side by thick chains. Ban­ners were hung on the fences, on which was writ­ten “no human being is ille­gal” and “break the pow­er of the G8” By this way the activists protest­ed against the Fortress of Europe. The marechaussee plays an impor­tant role in the inhu­mane immi­gra­tion pol­i­tics. Migra­tion is one of the main themes of the protests against the G8.

Pho­tos: http://www.indymedia.nl/nl/2007/05/44322.shtml

Video : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n5LnmkG2zOQ

Norwich Rising Tide — First Action

6.05.2007
NRT Spoof action — ‘Build the NDR: Con­crete is Free­dom!’ Pos­ing as mem­bers of the fic­tion­al Coali­tion for Roads And Progress (C.R.A.P), and bran­dish­ing plac­ards bear­ing slo­gans such as ‘Re-tar­mac the streets!’, ‘Oil is Good for the Plan­et’ and ‘The NDR – an indus­tri­al par­adise’ we held a series of mock press con­fer­ences out­side the Forum in Nor­wich city cen­tre.

NDR Norwich demo6.05.2007
NRT Spoof action — ‘Build the NDR: Con­crete is Free­dom!’ Pos­ing as mem­bers of the fic­tion­al Coali­tion for Roads And Progress (C.R.A.P), and bran­dish­ing plac­ards bear­ing slo­gans such as ‘Re-tar­mac the streets!’, ‘Oil is Good for the Plan­et’ and ‘The NDR – an indus­tri­al par­adise’ we held a series of mock press con­fer­ences out­side the Forum in Nor­wich city cen­tre.

On a fine Sat­ur­day morn­ing in May, 15 activists head­ed into Nor­wich city cen­tre to hold a rov­ing protest against the pro­posed North­ern Dis­trib­u­tor Road (NDR). Pos­ing as mem­bers of the fic­tion­al Coali­tion for Roads And Progress (C.R.A.P), we held a series of mock press con­fer­ences out­side the Forum, where the Coun­ty Coun­cil are hold­ing an exhi­bi­tion about plans for the NDR.

Stand­ing in front of a ban­ner read­ing ‘Build the NDR: Con­crete is Free­dom’, and sur­round­ed by a crowd of sup­port­ers wav­ing plac­ards bear­ing slo­gans such as ‘Spend More Time in Your Car!’ and ‘Who Needs Green Space or Peace and Qui­et?’, the press con­fer­ence heard from C.R.A.P mem­bers about their rea­sons for sup­port­ing the NDR.

Dr. Sey­mour Rhodes pre­sent­ed new med­ical research about the health ben­e­fits of air pol­lu­tion and the risks of exces­sive walk­ing or cycling. Mr. I. Sell­more, the devel­op­er on the pan­el, blew away the myth that the NDR will ease traf­fic con­ges­tion, instead insist­ing that it will replace the peace­ful vil­lages in North Nor­wich with a new indus­tri­al par­adise. Coun­cil­lor There­sa Gone reas­sured audi­ence mem­bers that the £100 mil­lion cost of the road would not go over bud­get, chal­leng­ing them to name any large infra­struc­ture projects around the coun­try that had not come in on time and on bud­get.

At the close of the press con­fer­ence, which came with much applause from the crowd that had assem­bled, the coali­tion mem­bers stepped out of char­ac­ter and began dis­trib­ut­ing leaflets to passers-by and talk­ing with them about the NDR project.

After an hour out­side the Forum, we moved loca­tions to the mar­ket square, where the press con­fer­ence was repeat­ed for the bustling Sat­ur­day morn­ing shop­ping crowd.

‘It was fun to watch, and real­ly inspir­ing to see peo­ple com­mu­ni­cat­ing such an impor­tant mes­sage in such a cre­ative way,’ said one of the audi­ence mem­bers.

Today’s protest was intend­ed to be a light-heart­ed way of point­ing out some major con­cerns we and many oth­ers have about the pro­posed NDR. The pit­falls of the project have become so great as to bor­der on the ridicu­lous, and we thought we could play on this as a fun and unusu­al way to engage passers by.

See below for the leaflet hand­ed out on the day, which explains both C.R.A.P.’s com­i­cal­ly pro-road posi­tion and our own con­cerns about the NDR.

It was a fun way to spend a Sat­ur­day morn­ing, and a suc­cess­ful and inspir­ing first out­ing for the new Nor­wich Ris­ing Tide group. Watch this space (and www.risingtide.org.uk/norwich) for more actions against the NDR and oth­er local cli­mate crim­i­nals!

norwich@risingtide.org.uk
http://www.risingtide.org.uk/norwich

Spoof Plac­ards

Here’s a full list of the spoof plac­ards that Coali­tion for Roads And Progress (C.R.A.P) mem­bers were bran­dish­ing yes­ter­day: -

NDR – an Urban Indus­tri­al Par­adise
Re-tar­mac the Streets
Oil is Good for the Plan­et!
Escape Flood­ing … by Car
Wim­pey say bring on the NDR
Urban is Joy!
Reward Fat Cats
Who needs Green Space or Peace and Qui­et?
Con­crete is Free­dom
More Con­crete, More Pol­lu­tion
Hoorah for the NDR – Spend more time in your Car
Tescos Loves the NDR
Car Fumes are Cheap­er than Cig­a­rettes
More Con­crete, Few­er Trees
The NDR – You know it Makes Sense!
More Con­crete, Less Green­ery
May Gur­ney has our Best Inter­ests at Heart
Growth is Hap­pi­ness
Sup­port Your Local Share­hold­er
Walk­ing is a Waste of Time!

Cornwall goes Critical

At mid­day this Sat 5th May cyclists gath­ered in the town square in Fal­mouth for the towns first Crit­i­cal Mass bike ride. The cel­e­bra­tion of com­bus­tion free lib­er­ty, pic­nics and ever so slight­ly fan­cy dress boast­ed near­ly 50 rid­ers. There was loads of diver­si­ty, from skater boys to hip­py chicks, bikey blokes to art stu­dents, crusties, mid­dle aged pro­fes­sion­als, old Earth­firsters, and fam­i­lies with kids. Not bad for a small town vir­tu­al­ly falling off the edge of the coun­try.

Falmouth's 1st Critical Mass 1
Falmouth's 1st Critical Mass 2At mid­day this Sat 5th May cyclists gath­ered in the town square in Fal­mouth for the towns first Crit­i­cal Mass bike ride. The cel­e­bra­tion of com­bus­tion free lib­er­ty, pic­nics and ever so slight­ly fan­cy dress boast­ed near­ly 50 rid­ers. There was loads of diver­si­ty, from skater boys to hip­py chicks, bikey blokes to art stu­dents, crusties, mid­dle aged pro­fes­sion­als, old Earth­firsters, and fam­i­lies with kids. Not bad for a small town vir­tu­al­ly falling off the edge of the coun­try.

The sam­ba band grabbed a fair bit of atten­tion for the ini­tial gath­er­ing, and then every­one set off for a rather dis­joint­ed but joy­ous per­am­bu­la­tion down the town. The response from the high street was a dra­mat­ic, sev­er­al jaws lit­er­al­ly dropped. Once peo­ple got over the shock almost every­one grinned. There was very lit­tle dri­ver lairy­ness, and the police (who had been tak­en unawares, and weren’t there to mind the start) made no real­ly inter­ven­tions.

Sat­ur­day lunch is of course an unusu­al time for a Crit­i­cal Mass, but it does kind of make sense in a small tourism based com­mu­ni­ty, and a good time was gen­er­al­ly agreed to have been had by all…There are plans to do it reg­u­lar.

These pho­tos aren’t par­tic­u­lar­ly rep­re­sen­ta­tive of the ride, but do show lots of peo­ple being hap­py on bikes.

Gloucester pipeline action group

May 6, 2007
There has been an action group formed in Glouces­ter to raise aware­ness about the pipeline and to protest against the pipeline. We meet up around once month and also stage direct actions, put on ben­e­fit gigs and have info stalls in Glouces­ter and at local events. Please send an email to fightthepipe@hotmail.co.uk for more infor­ma­tion or con­tact us through our myspace http://www.myspace.com/fightingthepipe

May 6, 2007
There has been an action group formed in Glouces­ter to raise aware­ness about the pipeline and to protest against the pipeline. We meet up around once month and also stage direct actions, put on ben­e­fit gigs and have info stalls in Glouces­ter and at local events. Please send an email to fightthepipe@hotmail.co.uk for more infor­ma­tion or con­tact us through our myspace http://www.myspace.com/fightingthepipe

We would love to hear from any­one whether you just want email updates on what we are doing, put up a few posters and give leaflets to friends or get involved with direct actions.

Togeth­er we can make a dif­fer­ence!